Posts
- Even for militant revolutionaries, this is low. Suspected Hindu hardliners in India have gone where even raging revolutionaries shouldn’t venture: burning down a Christian orphanage in eastern India, killing a 21-year-old teacher, seriously injuring a priest and leaving dozens of children without a home. This reprehensible attack occurred in Khuntapali, a village located in the Orissa state, as part of a strike called for by the World Hindu Council to protest the killing of a Hindu religious leader and four rebels by suspected communist rebels in another district of the same state. That’s all well and good, wanting to strike back for your fallen comrades and all, but a freaking Christian orphanage where dozens of children live? What, did those kids of that teacher pull the trigger and shoot your friends? Perspective, Hindu extremists, perspective. I realize that’s a foreign word for knobs like you, but perspective means having a clear view of a situation and not murdering people who had nothing to do with your friends’ death. I don’t see myself coming to India and shooting you because someone hurt one of my friends here in the U.S., so get your head right and stop this garbage….
- With a new school year starting at Wilson (N.Y.) High School, it appears that the three sick freaks who were the perpetrators in an ugly hazing incident during last baseball season will be getting a second chance they really don’t deserve. The three offenders - 18-year-old Geoffrey Seefeldt and two 16-year-olds - will not face felony charges after beating several of their younger teammates during a bus ride back from a game in Niagara Falls and forcing objects into their rectums. Initially, the three offenders were charged with third-degree aggravated sexual abuse, a felony, and misdemeanor child endangerment, but it was revealed this week that they will not be facing felony charges. As I said, it’s an undeserved break for three guys who perpetrated a vile, reprehensible sexual assault on their teammates that took place while the boys still had their uniform pants on. So I can’t really get with Niagara County district attorney Michael Violante, who said in a statement Friday that charges against would be reduced to “an appropriate misdemeanor charge and add misdemeanor and violation charges of hazing.” How anyone can do something like this to guys who are supposed to be your friends and teammates on the varsity baseball team is beyond me. Why and how anyone on any team, anywhere at any time thinks this kind of hazing is fresh, funny or appropriate is confounding. If you want to make the underclassmen carry your gear bag, tape them to the goalpost or ambush them with water balloons, fine. Heck, take the tires off their car and put it up on blocks, that’s fine. Pretty much anything is okay, just as long as it doesn’t involve sexual assault, causing physical harm or anything illegal. Nothing like scarring these guys for life just to amuse yourself for a few minutes, though. Good decision making there…….
- I hear you and I am with you 217 percent, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. When you demand that all foreign troops leave Iraq by a specific date in 2011 and reject immunity for American troops, I hear ya. W. and the rest of our ass-hatted political leaders here in the Unted States have jerked you (and their own people, for that matter) around for too long. There has been a discernable lack of vision, honesty, evidence, justification, direction and pretty much any other positive quality from our political leaders in this abortion of a war, so it will take someone in the Iraqi government to have the balls to stand up and make a demand like this in order to get American troops out of Iraq. What’s funny is that anyone on the American side of this debate is resisting the Iraqis on this matter. It’s their f’ing country, after all. They didn’t ask us to invade, so when they tell us that they want us out, who are we to argue with them? This isn't America’s 51st state or a U.S. territory; it’s a foreign country, one with its own government. So when its prime minister demands a firm U.S. exit date, I say amen! Someone should have said this a long time ago and even one ounce of opposition from the U.S. government to this demand only serves to underscore what a bunch of tools we’ve had running this country for the past eight years……
- Tough time for David Duchovny, eh? If you believe the claims the actor is making, his life has taken on an eerie parallel to that of his character on HBO’s Californication. On the show, Duchovny plays Hank Moody, whose big problem is that his obsession with sexing it up keeps him from having real relationships. Now, the actor is claiming that he suffers from the same problem and that he needs treatment. Oddly enough, there is a group that deals with the addiction - Sex Addicts Anonymous. The organization’s definition of being a sex addict is a person engaging in any kind of sexual behavior that they don't want to be involved in, something they’re trying to stop.” The group even follows a 12-step process similar to by Alcoholics Anonymous. Some are speculating that Duchovny isn't really a sex addict, but rather engaging in another obsession for actors: shameless self-promotion. Personally, I’m leaning toward the latter, if for no other reason than this story is so ridiculous and it’s so implausible that a celebrity would go public with this rather than just treating it. But if you really are afflicted, Dave, best of success in kicking your addiction to hitting it…..
- A big, big thumbs down to the testicular-fortitude-lacking, spineless Rev. Antonio Rungi for bowing to pressure and pulling the plug on his idea for an online beauty pageant for nuns. The “Miss Sister Pageant” was scheduled to begin next month on a site hosting Rungi’s blog, but protests from members of the Catholic church and its leadership have frightened him out of following through on his great idea. The reverend also went with the popular “misunderstood” card in defending his idea, which is requisite for anyone who is publicly criticized for saying or doing anything. Just say you were misquoted and/or misunderstood, that’ll do it. The problem here is that Rev. Rungi wasn’t in the wrong; he simply wanted to give more visibility to the nuns in the Catholic church and to break down stereotypes about nuns being old, stodgy and boring. It’s too bad that the sticks in the mud out there couldn’t embrace this idea and have some fun with it, which was the underlying intent anyhow…..
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Zimbabweans don't support Mugabe, women's tennis begins its offseason now and American Karaoke adds another facet to its loser-dom
- So as it turns out, Prison Break will be losing one of its most distinct, recognizable cast members this season: the ginormous tattoo covering nearly the entire upper body of Wentworth Miller, a.k.a. Michael Scofield. Come Monday night, Scofield has a painful, long appointment with a dermatologist to remove the massive tat that has been a hallmark of the show since the first episode. As PB fans know, the tattoo was a way to imprint the blueprints of the prison that Scofield broke big brother Linc out of in Season 1, along with other aspects of their escape plan all the way out of the United States. Removing it has a practical explanation in the plot, as it will make Michael stand out less and blend in more. Of course, it will also give the wardrobe department more clothing options. “It was a laborious process putting that [fake tattoo] on,” Miller said with relief. “I am looking forward to rolling my sleeves up!” Personally, I’m just looking forward to this season, tat or no tat, bring it on……
- Not knowing anything about the town in advance, does impressive, all-encompassing prison security spring to mind when I say the name of Clovis, New Mexico? Didn’t think so, which is why news that eight inmates, including one convicted murderer and one accused murderer, escaped from the county prison in Clovis this week by cutting a hole in the roof. Only one of the men ha been caught, leaving seven men that police are terming “at large and dangerous” out to roam the streets. A lot of questions arise here, namely how inmates get access to tools that would allow them to cut through the roof, how they got access to a location where they could cut through the roof and not be seen, how they were able to move along the roof unseen and what the hell the prison guards were doing during this time. Maybe a few less games of solitaire on the computer at the guard station and a little closer oversight of the prisoners would be helpful, fellas. Not telling you how to do your job, just thinking out loud…..
- Add another pompous, self-important, hack loser to the fray! Why not, when you’re the biggest joke in music and the biggest abortion of a TV show around? American Karaoke has been a piece of crap from its inception, helping bring karaoke to the masses, murder songs that used to be good and give a bunch of glorified karaoke-ers the mistaken idea that they a) are actually good, and b) can contribute something of value to the music world. In that spirit, why wouldn’t the show bring a fourth idiot judge on board? Songwriter Kara DioGuardi will be the latest to crucify any musical credibility she has by becoming the fourth wheel on the idiot wagon that is the AK judging panel. Of course, that statement isn't entirely fair; DioGuardi really doesn’t have any musical credibility to begin with. When your most recognizable songwriting efforts have been for hacks like Kelly Clarkson, Gwen Stefani and Pink, the fall to the level of American Karaoke isn't a long lone. According to some idiot producer, the idea all along has been for the show to have four judges, so this is really just the implementation of a plan that has been in place since the beginning of this travesty of music. Whatever, losers. Your show sucks with three judges, so it will suck with four. It would suck with any number of judges, mostly because you’re A FREAKING GLORIFIED KARAOKE CONTEST WITH PEOPLE WHO WOULD BE BETTER OFF BELTING OUT “ENDLESS LOVE” AT THEIR LOCAL KARAOKE BAR! Now go away and don’t come back…….
- I have some bad, bad news for all the dudes out there: Maria Sharapova will not be coming to a tennis court anywhere near you, or anyone else for that matter, for the remainder of 2008. According to the agent for the leggy, blonde Russian bombshell, Sharapova is shutting it down for the rest of the season due to some tears found in her shoulder. She hasn’t played in over a month and bowed out of the ongoing U.S. Open well in advance, so this decision doesn’t come as a huge surprise. A huge disappointment, yes, huge surprise, no. From Sharapova’s point of view, it makes sense. If your shoulder needs to heal and the last of your sport’s four major tournament is just about over, why come back now? To play in some also-ran events in second-tier towns and earn a little extra scratch? Not likely. Get the rest, rehab the injury, come back strong in 2009/ Of course, I’m not looking at it from Sharapova’s point of view; I’m looking at it from my point of view and I’m crushed. Seeing Sharapova grunting and lunging her way around the court is the biggest reason to watch women’s tennis for myself and most dudes. Seeing the heavily muscled Williams sisters is not a reason to tune into the ATP Pilot Pen tournament in Cincinnati or any other run-of-the-mill WTA event; it’s a reason to find something else to do with your time. So I’ll see you in 2009, women’s professional tennis, when Maria Sharapova is back in the court. Enjoy your offseason, which in my book has already started, regardless of what your event calendar says…..
- Score one for the opposition in Zimbabwe, finally. The country’s main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, won the top job in the national parliament. It’s the first time since Zimbabwe gained its independence in 1980 that the speaker’s post has not been held by a political ally of tyrannical dictator Bob Mugabe, the country’s (illegitimate) president. The thinking among political observers is that having an opposition leader in this powerful position could undercut Mugabe’s strength in ongoing power-sharing talks with the MDC, currently being mediated by South African President Thabo Mbeki. It’s amazing what happens in an election where Mugabe and his thugs aren't running around, assaulting, intimidating, kidnapping and murdering opposition members and supporters, no? When people are given the chance to speak out without fear of being killed because of it, it appears that Zimbabweans don’t support a tyrannical fascist of a leader who is steadily ruining their nation…..
- Not knowing anything about the town in advance, does impressive, all-encompassing prison security spring to mind when I say the name of Clovis, New Mexico? Didn’t think so, which is why news that eight inmates, including one convicted murderer and one accused murderer, escaped from the county prison in Clovis this week by cutting a hole in the roof. Only one of the men ha been caught, leaving seven men that police are terming “at large and dangerous” out to roam the streets. A lot of questions arise here, namely how inmates get access to tools that would allow them to cut through the roof, how they got access to a location where they could cut through the roof and not be seen, how they were able to move along the roof unseen and what the hell the prison guards were doing during this time. Maybe a few less games of solitaire on the computer at the guard station and a little closer oversight of the prisoners would be helpful, fellas. Not telling you how to do your job, just thinking out loud…..
- Add another pompous, self-important, hack loser to the fray! Why not, when you’re the biggest joke in music and the biggest abortion of a TV show around? American Karaoke has been a piece of crap from its inception, helping bring karaoke to the masses, murder songs that used to be good and give a bunch of glorified karaoke-ers the mistaken idea that they a) are actually good, and b) can contribute something of value to the music world. In that spirit, why wouldn’t the show bring a fourth idiot judge on board? Songwriter Kara DioGuardi will be the latest to crucify any musical credibility she has by becoming the fourth wheel on the idiot wagon that is the AK judging panel. Of course, that statement isn't entirely fair; DioGuardi really doesn’t have any musical credibility to begin with. When your most recognizable songwriting efforts have been for hacks like Kelly Clarkson, Gwen Stefani and Pink, the fall to the level of American Karaoke isn't a long lone. According to some idiot producer, the idea all along has been for the show to have four judges, so this is really just the implementation of a plan that has been in place since the beginning of this travesty of music. Whatever, losers. Your show sucks with three judges, so it will suck with four. It would suck with any number of judges, mostly because you’re A FREAKING GLORIFIED KARAOKE CONTEST WITH PEOPLE WHO WOULD BE BETTER OFF BELTING OUT “ENDLESS LOVE” AT THEIR LOCAL KARAOKE BAR! Now go away and don’t come back…….
- I have some bad, bad news for all the dudes out there: Maria Sharapova will not be coming to a tennis court anywhere near you, or anyone else for that matter, for the remainder of 2008. According to the agent for the leggy, blonde Russian bombshell, Sharapova is shutting it down for the rest of the season due to some tears found in her shoulder. She hasn’t played in over a month and bowed out of the ongoing U.S. Open well in advance, so this decision doesn’t come as a huge surprise. A huge disappointment, yes, huge surprise, no. From Sharapova’s point of view, it makes sense. If your shoulder needs to heal and the last of your sport’s four major tournament is just about over, why come back now? To play in some also-ran events in second-tier towns and earn a little extra scratch? Not likely. Get the rest, rehab the injury, come back strong in 2009/ Of course, I’m not looking at it from Sharapova’s point of view; I’m looking at it from my point of view and I’m crushed. Seeing Sharapova grunting and lunging her way around the court is the biggest reason to watch women’s tennis for myself and most dudes. Seeing the heavily muscled Williams sisters is not a reason to tune into the ATP Pilot Pen tournament in Cincinnati or any other run-of-the-mill WTA event; it’s a reason to find something else to do with your time. So I’ll see you in 2009, women’s professional tennis, when Maria Sharapova is back in the court. Enjoy your offseason, which in my book has already started, regardless of what your event calendar says…..
- Score one for the opposition in Zimbabwe, finally. The country’s main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, won the top job in the national parliament. It’s the first time since Zimbabwe gained its independence in 1980 that the speaker’s post has not been held by a political ally of tyrannical dictator Bob Mugabe, the country’s (illegitimate) president. The thinking among political observers is that having an opposition leader in this powerful position could undercut Mugabe’s strength in ongoing power-sharing talks with the MDC, currently being mediated by South African President Thabo Mbeki. It’s amazing what happens in an election where Mugabe and his thugs aren't running around, assaulting, intimidating, kidnapping and murdering opposition members and supporters, no? When people are given the chance to speak out without fear of being killed because of it, it appears that Zimbabweans don’t support a tyrannical fascist of a leader who is steadily ruining their nation…..
Friday, August 29, 2008
Survivor fans get bad news, candidates for worst parents ever and a new airline ripoff
- Survivor junkies, you’re going to have to wait a little longer for your fix. The debut of this season, Survivor: Gabon — Earth's Last Eden is being delayed one week from its originally scheduled original premiere date of September 18, back to September 25. However, in a move that should diffuse some of that hostility from the legions of Survivor fans out there, CBS is following through on its promise to provide a two-hour season premiere, the first of its kind in Survivor history. So while you have to wait an extra week to meet the latest round of Starbucks baristas, attorneys, teachers, scout leaders, former pro athletes and despicable liars all willing to do anything and everything necessary to win the game, you do get a double dose of your favorite show right off the bat, always a positive. If you still find yourself jones-ing for Survivor during that week, you can always satiate your appetite by digging up some worms and bugs from your back yard and eating them along with your family, followed by getting yourself lost in the woods and having to build your own shelter to survive for the night, good times…….
- For all you dudes out there who love the idea of naughty nuns and seeing the hot sister at your local parish in something other than a billowy, oversized robe, may I introduce Rev. Anthony Rungi. The reverend will be starting a unique beauty pageant next month on a blog he runs. The contest will be a beauty pageant for nuns, the Italian priest and theologian announced this week. The online pageant is intended to give nuns more visibility within the church and to fight the stereotype that they are all old, bitter, ugly wenches who enjoy cracking school children across the knuckles with rulers. Search for “Miss Sister 2008” if you’re looking to track down the website and see for yourself what it’s all about. Personally, I think it’s pretty amusing and not at all what you’d expect from a man of the cloth. I also have a feeling it will piss off a lot of über-conservative people within the Catholic Church, and pissing off stodgy, overly conservative people is one of the great joys in life…..
- One thing you can say for airlines: they never stop thinking of ways to extract more money from passengers. Whether it’s making FAT people buy an extra seat to accommodate their disgusting, flabby physiques or jamming everyone for an extra $15 just for checking a single bag, airlines never stop thinking of ways to separate you from your cash. So hats off to Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines Inc., which announced Tuesday that it will offer broadband wireless Internet access on its entire domestic mainline fleet by the middle of next year. As you might expect, the Wi-Fi service will be offered for a fee to customers traveling throughout the continental United States. Partnering with Delta to rip you off for overpriced Wi-Fi will be
Aircell, an airborne communications provider. Together, they will install the network on Delta’s domestic fleet of more than 330 aircraft. The system will allow Delta customers traveling with Wi-Fi enabled devices - i.e. laptops, smartphones and PDA’s, iPods - to access the Internet while in flight. Interestingly enough, Delta also said it will not filter out porn from the system, meaning you could have to disctinct pleasure of some pervy loser scanning the ‘Net for pictures of hot Asian teens and busty nurses for a couple hours….good times. How much am I going to get ripped off if I use this system, you ask? Well, an amazingly exorbitant flat fee of $9.95 will be charged on flights of three hours or less, and $12.95 on flights of more than three hours. Yes, you will pay $10 for Internet access for a two-hour flight, which would extrapolate out to $2,388 a month if you paid that rate at home for Internet. Mix in a few $5 beers and $7.50 sandwiches and you could blow most of your travel budget before you even step off the plane, awesome!
- Moviegoers were clearly looking for laughs this past weekend. The box office tallies, although extremely modest in nature, show the Ben Stiller-led Tropic Thunder in first with a paltry $16.1 million, followed by the new Anna Ferris comedy The House Bunny at $15.1 million. Following up the theme of subpar flicks leading the way for the weekend, the blood-and-gore action flop Death Race was third at $12.3 million. Hanging tough in fourth place was The Dark Knight at $10.3 million, raising the film’s total gross earnings to $490 million and counting. Rounding out the top five was Star Wars: The Clone Wars with just $5.7 million, finishing off the leaderboard for a weekend where Americans clearly felt they had better things do do than go to their local theater. Looking at the movies at the top of this list (at least four of the five, anyhow), I can't say I disagree with them……
- Worst parents ever or just looking to get by? I’ll opt for the former with Sean Michael Block and girlfriend Jennifer Richards. For starters, Block is the married boyfriend of Richards, which is one strike against them. When you throw in the fact that the pair was attempting to trade sex with Richards’ 5-year-old daughter for an apartment and a car, it’s a slam dunk that these two are as bad a set of parents as you’ll find anywhere, any time. The charges against them include using interstate facilities to transmit information about a minor and distribution of child pornography. I know this goes without saying, but how does anyone - anyone - have the kahones and total lack of a soul to pimp out a 5-year-old. She should be going to kindergarten, not having her mom try to auction her off to some sick freak for sex in order to secure an apartment and a used car. I have a feeling Block and Richards won't have to worry about finding a car or an apartment now, what with their promising future in prison where they’ll each have a place to stay and won’t need a vehicle……
- For all you dudes out there who love the idea of naughty nuns and seeing the hot sister at your local parish in something other than a billowy, oversized robe, may I introduce Rev. Anthony Rungi. The reverend will be starting a unique beauty pageant next month on a blog he runs. The contest will be a beauty pageant for nuns, the Italian priest and theologian announced this week. The online pageant is intended to give nuns more visibility within the church and to fight the stereotype that they are all old, bitter, ugly wenches who enjoy cracking school children across the knuckles with rulers. Search for “Miss Sister 2008” if you’re looking to track down the website and see for yourself what it’s all about. Personally, I think it’s pretty amusing and not at all what you’d expect from a man of the cloth. I also have a feeling it will piss off a lot of über-conservative people within the Catholic Church, and pissing off stodgy, overly conservative people is one of the great joys in life…..
- One thing you can say for airlines: they never stop thinking of ways to extract more money from passengers. Whether it’s making FAT people buy an extra seat to accommodate their disgusting, flabby physiques or jamming everyone for an extra $15 just for checking a single bag, airlines never stop thinking of ways to separate you from your cash. So hats off to Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines Inc., which announced Tuesday that it will offer broadband wireless Internet access on its entire domestic mainline fleet by the middle of next year. As you might expect, the Wi-Fi service will be offered for a fee to customers traveling throughout the continental United States. Partnering with Delta to rip you off for overpriced Wi-Fi will be
Aircell, an airborne communications provider. Together, they will install the network on Delta’s domestic fleet of more than 330 aircraft. The system will allow Delta customers traveling with Wi-Fi enabled devices - i.e. laptops, smartphones and PDA’s, iPods - to access the Internet while in flight. Interestingly enough, Delta also said it will not filter out porn from the system, meaning you could have to disctinct pleasure of some pervy loser scanning the ‘Net for pictures of hot Asian teens and busty nurses for a couple hours….good times. How much am I going to get ripped off if I use this system, you ask? Well, an amazingly exorbitant flat fee of $9.95 will be charged on flights of three hours or less, and $12.95 on flights of more than three hours. Yes, you will pay $10 for Internet access for a two-hour flight, which would extrapolate out to $2,388 a month if you paid that rate at home for Internet. Mix in a few $5 beers and $7.50 sandwiches and you could blow most of your travel budget before you even step off the plane, awesome!
- Moviegoers were clearly looking for laughs this past weekend. The box office tallies, although extremely modest in nature, show the Ben Stiller-led Tropic Thunder in first with a paltry $16.1 million, followed by the new Anna Ferris comedy The House Bunny at $15.1 million. Following up the theme of subpar flicks leading the way for the weekend, the blood-and-gore action flop Death Race was third at $12.3 million. Hanging tough in fourth place was The Dark Knight at $10.3 million, raising the film’s total gross earnings to $490 million and counting. Rounding out the top five was Star Wars: The Clone Wars with just $5.7 million, finishing off the leaderboard for a weekend where Americans clearly felt they had better things do do than go to their local theater. Looking at the movies at the top of this list (at least four of the five, anyhow), I can't say I disagree with them……
- Worst parents ever or just looking to get by? I’ll opt for the former with Sean Michael Block and girlfriend Jennifer Richards. For starters, Block is the married boyfriend of Richards, which is one strike against them. When you throw in the fact that the pair was attempting to trade sex with Richards’ 5-year-old daughter for an apartment and a car, it’s a slam dunk that these two are as bad a set of parents as you’ll find anywhere, any time. The charges against them include using interstate facilities to transmit information about a minor and distribution of child pornography. I know this goes without saying, but how does anyone - anyone - have the kahones and total lack of a soul to pimp out a 5-year-old. She should be going to kindergarten, not having her mom try to auction her off to some sick freak for sex in order to secure an apartment and a used car. I have a feeling Block and Richards won't have to worry about finding a car or an apartment now, what with their promising future in prison where they’ll each have a place to stay and won’t need a vehicle……
Thursday, August 28, 2008
One idiotic voice rips instant replay, things good protestors don't do and Ryan Atwood back on TV
- Maybe instead of trying for a series of clever rebuttal commercials to combat Apple’s “I’m a PC/I’m a Mac” ads, Microsoft should focus on not putting out an inferior product. No offense meant, I’m just trying to think creatively here. Word on the street is that Microsoft is courting funnyman Jerry Seinfeld with a $10 million offer to pimp its inferior operating system, Windows. Ironically, Seinfeld was always seen using a Mac on his self-titled sitcom during the ’90s, but that isn't stopping Microsoft from enlisting him to combat the commercial comedic team of Justin Long and John Hodgman. While those ads have run their course as far as I’m concerned and stopped being funny months ago, the fact is that when you get down to the facts, Apple’s Leopard operating system and even its predecessors are far, far superior to Windows. They don’t crash or lock up and they’re far easier to use. Leopard comes with cool, easy-to-use programs like iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto and Garage Band that allow you to produce professional-looking DVD’s, podcasts, movies and presentations, while Windows is a convoluted, non-sensical OS with a disturbing propensity to crash. So instead of pouring money into new commercials, why not work on making your product better, Bill Gates? Just thinking out loud…..
- I thought foreign diplomats were supposed to have carte blanche to do what they wanted, when they wanted while representing their country abroad. Commit traffic violations, sexually harass women, be drunk in public - no worries because diplomatic immunity covers your a**. Now that line of thinking has been thrown for a loop with the sentencing of ex-U.S. diplomat Gons G. Nachman to as much as 20 years in prison for taping his sexual encounters with teenage girls while stationed in Brazil and the Congo. While Nachman admitted to being a world-class perv, he had argued for leniency based on, among other things, the fact that sex with consenting teenage girls was more acceptable in other countries than in the U.S. because of cultural differences. The judge wasn’t buying it, giving Nachman the maximum possible sentence. I’m perplexed, not because Nachman’s excuse is legit, but because I didn’t think it made a difference if a diplomat had a legitimate excuse for his or her actions. Wipe the slate clean, look the other way; that’s how it’s supposed to work. That being said, you can't tell me that “it’s okay to sex it up with teenage girls in other countries” was your defense at your trial, Gons. You have to do better than that, dude. Say you thought the girls were 18, say you’re being framed, say something, anything other than it’s all right because in those countries hitting it with underage girls is acceptable. Oh, and have you learned nothing from the scores of celebrities and quasi-celebs who have been scandalized by sex tapes? You make a tape of yourself having sex with someone, you can go ahead and assume it’s going to be seen by people you don’t want to see it…..
- Welcome back to television, Ryan Atwood! Benjamin McKenzie, also known as Ryan Atwood on the now-deceased The O.C., is headed back to TV in LAPD, a drama pilot from John Wells, the director of ER, which is heading into its last season. Wells apparently is looking for his next project now that the interminable ER is about to end and McKenzie is getting back into TV for the first time since his stint as bad-boy-turned-bad-boy-in-rich-community Ryan Atwood on The O.C., which called it quits last year after four fun seasons. Now to the cynic, LAPD might sound like a blatant rip-off of a million other cop shows on TV with similar names, but maybe John Wells has a brand new take on the world of law enforcement that will wow us all….no, I don’t think so either.
- Wanna know something good protestors and activists don’t do? Sail into their protest destination, that’s what. Sailing in is the antithesis of the spirit of social dissidence, mostly because sailing reeks of privilege, upper-class living and sweaters tied around your neck. So to the activists who sailed into Gaza Strip last week to protest an Israeli blockade, I say this: nice try, but no. Don’t allow the fact that you received a jubilant reception from thousands of Palestinians delude you into thinking what you did was right or a good protest. The blockade has been in place since 2007, when Hamas seized Gaza and Israel reacted with a blockade that allows virtually nothing outside of humanitarian aid in. It has led to shortages in fuel, food and basic supplies, which obviously isn't sitting well with Palestinians. However, could no one lob a Molotov cocktail and the offending blockaders? What about getting your hands on a nice, rocket-propelled grenade? If all else fails, loot, riot, pillage and burn flags, that always helps. Plain and simple, you should not be sailing into anywhere as a means of social dissidence unless, and I stress unless, you are pirate activists. If and when protesting on behalf of all things pirate-y, sailing in is an acceptable means of protest and transportation for protests. Hope that’s clear so I don’t have to go over this again…..
- It’s here, finally. Major League Baseball has finally taken its head out of the sand and brought instant replay into the game. They’ve actually made a solid call by limiting the use of replay to disputed home run calls, as expanding it to safe/out calls on the bases, balls and strikes or catch/no catch on balls that players catch close to the ground would have put a major drag on the speed of games. If you’re reviewing every little questionable call, you’re going to have five-hour games and no one needs or wants that. Unfortunately, not every is intelligent enough to understand that replay is a good thing for baseball. Take noted cameraman-assaulter and cheater Kenny Rogers of the Detroit Tigers, a.k.a. The Roaster. The Roaster isn't down with replay, saying, “I don't like it. I think that it overshot the mark by far just because, what, in a Yankee game someone didn't get a homer? Please. It's happened thousands of times. That's part of the game. It's the beauty of the game. Mistakes are made.” What, Roaster, you mean like you shoving that cameraman who was half your size to the ground? Or that suspicious, pine-tar-resembling substance on your hand that cameras caught during the 2006 World Series? Those mistakes? Of course, the most hilarious part of the Roaster’s crack on instant replay was him trying to use this as an occasion to suck up to the umpires. “It's a slap in the face of umpires that have been here for a long time and they've done a very good job with difficult situations in all aspects,” the Roaster said. “So they made the call wrong once in a while. We've all done things wrong once in a while. For every human individual out there, we're all playing our best. We make errors. It's part of the game.” Nice try, Roaster. Trying to get a little more leeway on the strike zone and a more favorable outside corner of the plate when you pitch by “defending” the umpires in this debate is laughable. Your over-5.00 E.R.A. may be lousy, but you brown-nosing to help your case is lame. And since when are obvious, easily correctable errors that could change the outcome of an important game beautiful? These plays haven’t just happened during Yankees games, either. The play that spurred this on more than anything happened against the Yankees, when Carlos Delgado of the Mets had a home run ripped by the umpires that may have helped the Mets win against the Yankees. So stick to what you do best - cheating, assaulting cameramen and giving up home runs on a sub-.500 team, Roaster, and leave the important decisions to others…..
- I thought foreign diplomats were supposed to have carte blanche to do what they wanted, when they wanted while representing their country abroad. Commit traffic violations, sexually harass women, be drunk in public - no worries because diplomatic immunity covers your a**. Now that line of thinking has been thrown for a loop with the sentencing of ex-U.S. diplomat Gons G. Nachman to as much as 20 years in prison for taping his sexual encounters with teenage girls while stationed in Brazil and the Congo. While Nachman admitted to being a world-class perv, he had argued for leniency based on, among other things, the fact that sex with consenting teenage girls was more acceptable in other countries than in the U.S. because of cultural differences. The judge wasn’t buying it, giving Nachman the maximum possible sentence. I’m perplexed, not because Nachman’s excuse is legit, but because I didn’t think it made a difference if a diplomat had a legitimate excuse for his or her actions. Wipe the slate clean, look the other way; that’s how it’s supposed to work. That being said, you can't tell me that “it’s okay to sex it up with teenage girls in other countries” was your defense at your trial, Gons. You have to do better than that, dude. Say you thought the girls were 18, say you’re being framed, say something, anything other than it’s all right because in those countries hitting it with underage girls is acceptable. Oh, and have you learned nothing from the scores of celebrities and quasi-celebs who have been scandalized by sex tapes? You make a tape of yourself having sex with someone, you can go ahead and assume it’s going to be seen by people you don’t want to see it…..
- Welcome back to television, Ryan Atwood! Benjamin McKenzie, also known as Ryan Atwood on the now-deceased The O.C., is headed back to TV in LAPD, a drama pilot from John Wells, the director of ER, which is heading into its last season. Wells apparently is looking for his next project now that the interminable ER is about to end and McKenzie is getting back into TV for the first time since his stint as bad-boy-turned-bad-boy-in-rich-community Ryan Atwood on The O.C., which called it quits last year after four fun seasons. Now to the cynic, LAPD might sound like a blatant rip-off of a million other cop shows on TV with similar names, but maybe John Wells has a brand new take on the world of law enforcement that will wow us all….no, I don’t think so either.
- Wanna know something good protestors and activists don’t do? Sail into their protest destination, that’s what. Sailing in is the antithesis of the spirit of social dissidence, mostly because sailing reeks of privilege, upper-class living and sweaters tied around your neck. So to the activists who sailed into Gaza Strip last week to protest an Israeli blockade, I say this: nice try, but no. Don’t allow the fact that you received a jubilant reception from thousands of Palestinians delude you into thinking what you did was right or a good protest. The blockade has been in place since 2007, when Hamas seized Gaza and Israel reacted with a blockade that allows virtually nothing outside of humanitarian aid in. It has led to shortages in fuel, food and basic supplies, which obviously isn't sitting well with Palestinians. However, could no one lob a Molotov cocktail and the offending blockaders? What about getting your hands on a nice, rocket-propelled grenade? If all else fails, loot, riot, pillage and burn flags, that always helps. Plain and simple, you should not be sailing into anywhere as a means of social dissidence unless, and I stress unless, you are pirate activists. If and when protesting on behalf of all things pirate-y, sailing in is an acceptable means of protest and transportation for protests. Hope that’s clear so I don’t have to go over this again…..
- It’s here, finally. Major League Baseball has finally taken its head out of the sand and brought instant replay into the game. They’ve actually made a solid call by limiting the use of replay to disputed home run calls, as expanding it to safe/out calls on the bases, balls and strikes or catch/no catch on balls that players catch close to the ground would have put a major drag on the speed of games. If you’re reviewing every little questionable call, you’re going to have five-hour games and no one needs or wants that. Unfortunately, not every is intelligent enough to understand that replay is a good thing for baseball. Take noted cameraman-assaulter and cheater Kenny Rogers of the Detroit Tigers, a.k.a. The Roaster. The Roaster isn't down with replay, saying, “I don't like it. I think that it overshot the mark by far just because, what, in a Yankee game someone didn't get a homer? Please. It's happened thousands of times. That's part of the game. It's the beauty of the game. Mistakes are made.” What, Roaster, you mean like you shoving that cameraman who was half your size to the ground? Or that suspicious, pine-tar-resembling substance on your hand that cameras caught during the 2006 World Series? Those mistakes? Of course, the most hilarious part of the Roaster’s crack on instant replay was him trying to use this as an occasion to suck up to the umpires. “It's a slap in the face of umpires that have been here for a long time and they've done a very good job with difficult situations in all aspects,” the Roaster said. “So they made the call wrong once in a while. We've all done things wrong once in a while. For every human individual out there, we're all playing our best. We make errors. It's part of the game.” Nice try, Roaster. Trying to get a little more leeway on the strike zone and a more favorable outside corner of the plate when you pitch by “defending” the umpires in this debate is laughable. Your over-5.00 E.R.A. may be lousy, but you brown-nosing to help your case is lame. And since when are obvious, easily correctable errors that could change the outcome of an important game beautiful? These plays haven’t just happened during Yankees games, either. The play that spurred this on more than anything happened against the Yankees, when Carlos Delgado of the Mets had a home run ripped by the umpires that may have helped the Mets win against the Yankees. So stick to what you do best - cheating, assaulting cameramen and giving up home runs on a sub-.500 team, Roaster, and leave the important decisions to others…..
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
NFL preseason injuries, the Rock Hall becomes a bigger joke and rappers v. cheerleaders
- Kicking off the fall TV season, last night’s season premiere of Greek was a good one. While I’m still amazed that the show is in its third season and so far we still haven’t progressed through an entire calendar year in the show’s fictional world, I’m going to suspend that amazement and enjoy the fun, wacky goodness that is life at Cyprus Rhodes University. The wackiness centered on the Greek Olympics this week, which saw all of the houses on campus competing for the title. The Kappa Taus were in fine form, recruiting Rusty and Ben Bennett for the human wheelbarrow portion of the contest and using a cheer ripped off from a teen chick flick cheerleading film for the cheerleading portion of the competition. Rusty, unfortunately, ran afoul of the brothers for hanging out too much with pal Calvin, a pledge at rival Omega Chi. The two had made a pact to hang out more and not allow their different houses to come between them anymore, but a plan to hang out and see Ben Hur with the ever-annoying Dale was scuttled by Cappie, who forbade Rusty from seeing his buddy Calvin during Olympic week. That tension heightened when the Omega Chis ripped off the same cheer as the Kappa Taus for the competition, leading to more suspicion for Rusty. He wasn’t the only pledge having trouble; Zeta Beta pledge Rebecca Logan was in even hotter water. After her spring break wet t-shirt contest antics in last season’s finale, she faced discipline from the sorority and received a community service punshment. Her response? Get drunk and splash around in the fountain outside a posh gathering held by the university president. That stunt resulted in a visit from ZBZ national consultant Tegan (Charisma Carpenter), who agreed with Casey Cartwright’s decision to boot Rebecca from the sorority. However, Casey changed her mind at the last moment, talked Rebecca into staying and stood up to Tegan. With her status as sorority president still on an interim basis, she staked her rep on Rebecca cleaning up her act. Cleanng up their act wasn’t what Evan, Casey’s ex, and her big sis at ZBZ, Frannie, had in mind. Their romance, which took root at spring break, continued this week, with both agreeing to keep a lid on things - until sharing a kiss at the closing ceremonies for the Greek Olympics for everyone to see, including Casey. The ZBZ’s and Omega Chi’s both won the Olympics, with the Omega Chis needing to cheat during the tricycle race (Evan shoving Cappie off the road). All told, it was a fun return to campus for Greek, kicking off a third season that should be full of drama…..
- Pvt. Robin Long may be headed to prison for a 15-month sentence, but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong for what he did - far from it. Long’s courageous decision to flee the U.S. Army after seeing the debacle in Iraq firsthand was the right one, even if he’s been found guilty of desertion. The 25-year-old Long left the Army and took up residence in Canada, the very place I’ve always had an interest in taking an extended vacation if our idiotic Congress ever reinstituted the draft, if you catch my drift. He was hit with those desertion charges and appeared in a courtroom in Fort Carson, Colo. to answer them. Long told the military judge presiding over his sentencing that he left the country over moral objections to what he believes to be an illegal war. Couldn’t be more with you, Robin. It’s unjustified, illegal, unethical and pretty much any other derogatory adjective you want to use to describe it. Personally, I’d say W., Dick Cheney and any other administration stooge who had anything to do with making this war happen should be the ones going to jail, but America isn't a nation where justice is always served - in fact, it’s a rarity. So do your time with dignity and allow the fact that you are 100 percent right encourage you during the next 15 months, amigo…..
- When I hear that a second-tier rapper like Da Brat has violently assaulted an Atlanta Falcons cheerleader at an Atlanta club, a variety of thoughts go through my mind. First, was it a strip club? The majority of cheerleaders for pro sports teams appear to work at strip clubs, so you’d have to figure the odds are high on that one. Second, are there pictures? Third, is there any situation where two less-likeable individuals could be involved in a brawl? First, you have Da Brat, who is about as ghetto as they come for hip-hoppers. She’s a subpar rapper who’s been around for more than a decade, a thug in a way that just isn't cool for a chick and someone who I’d pay no more than zero dollars and zero cents to see in concert. In fact, if she weren’t blasting Falcons cheerleaders in the head with full liquor bottles at clubs, I wouldn’t be discussing at all. But there she is, going upside the dome of an unidentified cheerleader with said liquor bottle, causing head injuries and earning three years in prison, seven years’ probation, 200 hours of community service and anger-management classes. As for the assaulted cheerleader….cheerleaders from pro teams are an entirely different animal than college cheerleaders, which I love. Women who cheer for pro teams slam on outfits that most strippers would reject for being too skanky, do dances that look like they belong on a stage with a pole and don’t lead any actual cheers. They’re misnamed, because what they really are is T&A for male fans, which is insulting to me as a guy. So when one of them is assaulted, I only feel kinda, sorta bad. Yes, this woman didn’t deserve to be blasted in the head with a tequila bottle, but she’s not exactly a sympathetic figure. So I guess my ultimate reaction to this story would be…..indifference? Let’s go with that……
- Did I or did I not say last week that I didn’t need any more proof that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was a totally lame joke of a museum that had as much rock credibility as My Little Pony and Care Bears? I said it, and dammit, I meant it. So it really wasn’t necessary for Hanson 2.0, a.k.a. the Jonas Brothers, to hammer that point home by visiting the museum in Cleveland and donating clothes from their latest album to its collection. Yet there were the three Hansons, er, Jonases, holding not one, but two news conferences and performing a three-song “sound-check party” for one of its tour sponsors, Verizon. There was the requisite cluster of hyperventilating, shrieking teenage girls at the museum, desperate for a glance of Jonas Brother A, B or C (I’ll bother to learn their actual names when their music stops sucking) and a picture that will go up immediately as the wallpaper on their computer and cell phone. Heck, how much rock cred can these guys have when their posse includes their parents and their little brother? Dude, I know at least one of you has to be old enough that you don’t need your mom and dad along on tour. As always, nice of the Rock Hall to keep its standard of musical credibility so ridiculously low that a herd of midgets could hurdle over it…..
- The NFL preseason jumped the shark a long time ago, but now we may be reaching a point where the league needs to seriously consider shortening the length of the exhibition (soryr NFL, you may not want to call it exhibition football, but that’s what it is) season. For several years now, the fact that fans are expected to pay regular-season prices for meaningless games where the starters often play one quarter or less has fueled the argument that something about the preseason needs to change. In fact, teams include preseason games in season ticket packages so fans have no choice but to buy the tickets for meaningless games if they want to see the ones that count. However, it’s a rash of injuries to star players in exhibition games that is behind the current push for a shorter preseason. The biggest injury to the biggest name is a torn lateral meniscus in the left knee that will force New York Giants defensive end Osi Umenyoira to miss the entire season. New Washington Redskins defensive end Jason Taylor’s strained knee will knock him out for two weeks and San Diego Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman could be out for the year as well with a preseason injury. These are just three of a litany of injuries to major names that have many in the football world asking if it’s time to reduce the number of exhibition games for four per team (five for the two teams that play in the NFL’s Hall of Fame game each preseason) to three or even two. I agree with the idea wholeheartedly, both for the sake of fans who are getting ripped off on tickets for meaningless games and for players who are getting injured in those same contests. No one is going to miss the fourth preseason game - well, except for billionaire NFL owners who would lose money out of their pockets. And that is the only - ONLY - reason the setup won't change, because the greedy owners insist on being douche bags and screwing everyone else for their own benefit. Players don’t get paid for the preseason, so it doesn’t behoove them to have four exhibition games. Here’s one plea for the owners of the NFL to remove their heads from up their a**es and for once, do the right thing. Cut the number of preseason games, a-holes….
- Pvt. Robin Long may be headed to prison for a 15-month sentence, but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong for what he did - far from it. Long’s courageous decision to flee the U.S. Army after seeing the debacle in Iraq firsthand was the right one, even if he’s been found guilty of desertion. The 25-year-old Long left the Army and took up residence in Canada, the very place I’ve always had an interest in taking an extended vacation if our idiotic Congress ever reinstituted the draft, if you catch my drift. He was hit with those desertion charges and appeared in a courtroom in Fort Carson, Colo. to answer them. Long told the military judge presiding over his sentencing that he left the country over moral objections to what he believes to be an illegal war. Couldn’t be more with you, Robin. It’s unjustified, illegal, unethical and pretty much any other derogatory adjective you want to use to describe it. Personally, I’d say W., Dick Cheney and any other administration stooge who had anything to do with making this war happen should be the ones going to jail, but America isn't a nation where justice is always served - in fact, it’s a rarity. So do your time with dignity and allow the fact that you are 100 percent right encourage you during the next 15 months, amigo…..
- When I hear that a second-tier rapper like Da Brat has violently assaulted an Atlanta Falcons cheerleader at an Atlanta club, a variety of thoughts go through my mind. First, was it a strip club? The majority of cheerleaders for pro sports teams appear to work at strip clubs, so you’d have to figure the odds are high on that one. Second, are there pictures? Third, is there any situation where two less-likeable individuals could be involved in a brawl? First, you have Da Brat, who is about as ghetto as they come for hip-hoppers. She’s a subpar rapper who’s been around for more than a decade, a thug in a way that just isn't cool for a chick and someone who I’d pay no more than zero dollars and zero cents to see in concert. In fact, if she weren’t blasting Falcons cheerleaders in the head with full liquor bottles at clubs, I wouldn’t be discussing at all. But there she is, going upside the dome of an unidentified cheerleader with said liquor bottle, causing head injuries and earning three years in prison, seven years’ probation, 200 hours of community service and anger-management classes. As for the assaulted cheerleader….cheerleaders from pro teams are an entirely different animal than college cheerleaders, which I love. Women who cheer for pro teams slam on outfits that most strippers would reject for being too skanky, do dances that look like they belong on a stage with a pole and don’t lead any actual cheers. They’re misnamed, because what they really are is T&A for male fans, which is insulting to me as a guy. So when one of them is assaulted, I only feel kinda, sorta bad. Yes, this woman didn’t deserve to be blasted in the head with a tequila bottle, but she’s not exactly a sympathetic figure. So I guess my ultimate reaction to this story would be…..indifference? Let’s go with that……
- Did I or did I not say last week that I didn’t need any more proof that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was a totally lame joke of a museum that had as much rock credibility as My Little Pony and Care Bears? I said it, and dammit, I meant it. So it really wasn’t necessary for Hanson 2.0, a.k.a. the Jonas Brothers, to hammer that point home by visiting the museum in Cleveland and donating clothes from their latest album to its collection. Yet there were the three Hansons, er, Jonases, holding not one, but two news conferences and performing a three-song “sound-check party” for one of its tour sponsors, Verizon. There was the requisite cluster of hyperventilating, shrieking teenage girls at the museum, desperate for a glance of Jonas Brother A, B or C (I’ll bother to learn their actual names when their music stops sucking) and a picture that will go up immediately as the wallpaper on their computer and cell phone. Heck, how much rock cred can these guys have when their posse includes their parents and their little brother? Dude, I know at least one of you has to be old enough that you don’t need your mom and dad along on tour. As always, nice of the Rock Hall to keep its standard of musical credibility so ridiculously low that a herd of midgets could hurdle over it…..
- The NFL preseason jumped the shark a long time ago, but now we may be reaching a point where the league needs to seriously consider shortening the length of the exhibition (soryr NFL, you may not want to call it exhibition football, but that’s what it is) season. For several years now, the fact that fans are expected to pay regular-season prices for meaningless games where the starters often play one quarter or less has fueled the argument that something about the preseason needs to change. In fact, teams include preseason games in season ticket packages so fans have no choice but to buy the tickets for meaningless games if they want to see the ones that count. However, it’s a rash of injuries to star players in exhibition games that is behind the current push for a shorter preseason. The biggest injury to the biggest name is a torn lateral meniscus in the left knee that will force New York Giants defensive end Osi Umenyoira to miss the entire season. New Washington Redskins defensive end Jason Taylor’s strained knee will knock him out for two weeks and San Diego Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman could be out for the year as well with a preseason injury. These are just three of a litany of injuries to major names that have many in the football world asking if it’s time to reduce the number of exhibition games for four per team (five for the two teams that play in the NFL’s Hall of Fame game each preseason) to three or even two. I agree with the idea wholeheartedly, both for the sake of fans who are getting ripped off on tickets for meaningless games and for players who are getting injured in those same contests. No one is going to miss the fourth preseason game - well, except for billionaire NFL owners who would lose money out of their pockets. And that is the only - ONLY - reason the setup won't change, because the greedy owners insist on being douche bags and screwing everyone else for their own benefit. Players don’t get paid for the preseason, so it doesn’t behoove them to have four exhibition games. Here’s one plea for the owners of the NFL to remove their heads from up their a**es and for once, do the right thing. Cut the number of preseason games, a-holes….
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Getting rid of Chris Kattan, final Olympic thoughts and welcome to the race, Joe Biden
- So apparently Michaela McManus is going to be the Deion Sanders of television this season. No, she’s not going to dress in hideous, loud outfits and try to sell a new hot-dog cooker that’s basically a rip-off of George Foreman’s grill. No, just like Sanders was a two-sport star in his heyday, playing both professional baseball and football at the same time, McManus will be a cast member for both Law & Order: SVU, and One Tree Hill. The assumption had been that once she landed the SVU gig, her OTH days were done. Not so, says series creator Mark Schwahn In fact, he told TV Guide that she’ll be back for multiple episodes in OTH’s (inexplicable) sixth season. However, Schwahn says her return doesn’t mean the continuation of the Lucas-Lindsey-Brooke-Peyton love rectangle, because as he puts it, the characters are growing up and maturing, so their high school-esque love messes will do the same. Sure, whatever. This is one of those shows I watch because it’s better than a lot of the crap on TV and I’m kinda, sorta invested in it, but a stellar show it ain’t. So bring on Season 6, which Lord willing will be the last one…..
- Wireless: it may not be only for the Internet much longer. While the technology is still experimental and not ready for mass distribution, computer-chip giant Intel is building on research done last year by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to pioneer the concept of wireless power transmission for laptops. On Thursday, Intel demonstrated how to power a 60-watt light bulb from an energy source stationed three feet away. In the process, only one-fourth of the energy being transferred was lost, a rate that Intel researchers cite as being more efficient than the power pack on your average laptop. Not to go all Bill Nye “The Science Guy” on you, but the way the process works is that electric coils which resonate at the same frequency can transmit energy to each other. With this capability now proven, Intel’s next big challenge in bringing this new technology to consumers is adapting it specifically to laptops and making sure that the electromagnetic fields involved in the transmission process don’t interfere with the other functions of the computer. So it’s not something that you’ll find at your local Best Buy any time this year, but sooner rather than later, you might be able to recharge the battery on your lapper without that pesky AC adapter…..good times.
- Finally….we know who Barack Obama’s choice for his vice presidential running mate is, and I could not be happier…..that it’s not Hank Clinton! Truth be told, I didn’t give a damn who it was, just as long as we made sure that Hank was not only not going to be running for president, but that she wouldn’t be able to backdoor her way into the Oval Office by becoming VP and stepping in if something happened to Obama. So congrats to Delaware Sen. Joe Biden for securing the nod, because although I’m not a big fan of Biden and he reminds me of those two old, crotchety guys on The Muppets who sat in the balcony and heckled everyone, he’s still a better alternative than Hank. Of course, outside of Saddam Hussein, Hitler, Mussolini, Pol Pot and Fidel Castro, the list of possible VP picks who would be worse than Hank is short and select. With the Democratic National Convention now in full swing out in Denver, it’s time for Obama and Biden, the ebony and ivory of the Democratic Party, to focus on defeating that senile, oft-incoherent idiot John McCain come November…..
- Two closing Olympic thoughts: 1) the U.S.-Spain gold medal game in men’s basketball was NOT one of the greatest international games of all-time, and 2) the only thing that is a bigger waste of time than the opening ceremony is the closing ceremony. First, the basketball game: it was a foul-plagued, poorly officiated contest in which neither side played much defense. Yes, there were some stellar offensive exchanges and clutch shots, especially by the Americans (suck it, Spaniards!), but it can hardly be called one of the great international games of all-time when it never felt as if Spain had a shot to win. The Spaniards (and oh yeah, can we get announcers with enough intelligence and education to call them the Spanish team or the Spaniards, not “the Spain team”? Thanks!) never led by more than five points and never led after the first quarter, so how could anyone outside of their own delusional fans believe they were actually going to win? An exciting game, yes. An all-time great? No chance. On to the closing ceremony…..it was more of the same from the opening ceremony, thousands of Chinese dancers in odd, often-futuristic costumes doing lame dances and chanting. No medals were awarded, nothing was accomplished and tons of money were wasted on fireworks and other trinkets. Aside from the parade of nations at the opening ceremony, we could do away with everything else from the two ceremonies and have a better Olympic experience for it….keep that in mind for 2012, London….
- Hard to see how this one went sour…..Chris Kattan and his bride of eight whole weeks have split, showing that not everyone is sharp enough to realize how annoying Chris Kattan is after just one or two Saturday Night Live skits like I did. Whereas I could watch one five-minute skit and realize that Kattan just might be the most annoying comic this side of Andy Dick, model Sunshine Tutt (her actual name, I kid you not) took more than a month to fully grasp Kattan’s über-annoying personality. The pair married on June 28 in Yosemite Canyon but separated a month later, ultimately filing for a formal separation this past week. You may recall Kattan as that whiny, pesky guy with the annoying voice on SNL between 1996 and 2003, while you might remember Tutt from…..I don’t know, but I’m guessing she’s done an ad for jeans or perfume that you’ve seen at some point, somewhere. The relationship is now over, having had its official beginning when the pair became engaged on Christmas Eve 2006. But hey, they had a great, memorable month together and that’s really all you can ask for from a marriage, right?
- Wireless: it may not be only for the Internet much longer. While the technology is still experimental and not ready for mass distribution, computer-chip giant Intel is building on research done last year by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to pioneer the concept of wireless power transmission for laptops. On Thursday, Intel demonstrated how to power a 60-watt light bulb from an energy source stationed three feet away. In the process, only one-fourth of the energy being transferred was lost, a rate that Intel researchers cite as being more efficient than the power pack on your average laptop. Not to go all Bill Nye “The Science Guy” on you, but the way the process works is that electric coils which resonate at the same frequency can transmit energy to each other. With this capability now proven, Intel’s next big challenge in bringing this new technology to consumers is adapting it specifically to laptops and making sure that the electromagnetic fields involved in the transmission process don’t interfere with the other functions of the computer. So it’s not something that you’ll find at your local Best Buy any time this year, but sooner rather than later, you might be able to recharge the battery on your lapper without that pesky AC adapter…..good times.
- Finally….we know who Barack Obama’s choice for his vice presidential running mate is, and I could not be happier…..that it’s not Hank Clinton! Truth be told, I didn’t give a damn who it was, just as long as we made sure that Hank was not only not going to be running for president, but that she wouldn’t be able to backdoor her way into the Oval Office by becoming VP and stepping in if something happened to Obama. So congrats to Delaware Sen. Joe Biden for securing the nod, because although I’m not a big fan of Biden and he reminds me of those two old, crotchety guys on The Muppets who sat in the balcony and heckled everyone, he’s still a better alternative than Hank. Of course, outside of Saddam Hussein, Hitler, Mussolini, Pol Pot and Fidel Castro, the list of possible VP picks who would be worse than Hank is short and select. With the Democratic National Convention now in full swing out in Denver, it’s time for Obama and Biden, the ebony and ivory of the Democratic Party, to focus on defeating that senile, oft-incoherent idiot John McCain come November…..
- Two closing Olympic thoughts: 1) the U.S.-Spain gold medal game in men’s basketball was NOT one of the greatest international games of all-time, and 2) the only thing that is a bigger waste of time than the opening ceremony is the closing ceremony. First, the basketball game: it was a foul-plagued, poorly officiated contest in which neither side played much defense. Yes, there were some stellar offensive exchanges and clutch shots, especially by the Americans (suck it, Spaniards!), but it can hardly be called one of the great international games of all-time when it never felt as if Spain had a shot to win. The Spaniards (and oh yeah, can we get announcers with enough intelligence and education to call them the Spanish team or the Spaniards, not “the Spain team”? Thanks!) never led by more than five points and never led after the first quarter, so how could anyone outside of their own delusional fans believe they were actually going to win? An exciting game, yes. An all-time great? No chance. On to the closing ceremony…..it was more of the same from the opening ceremony, thousands of Chinese dancers in odd, often-futuristic costumes doing lame dances and chanting. No medals were awarded, nothing was accomplished and tons of money were wasted on fireworks and other trinkets. Aside from the parade of nations at the opening ceremony, we could do away with everything else from the two ceremonies and have a better Olympic experience for it….keep that in mind for 2012, London….
- Hard to see how this one went sour…..Chris Kattan and his bride of eight whole weeks have split, showing that not everyone is sharp enough to realize how annoying Chris Kattan is after just one or two Saturday Night Live skits like I did. Whereas I could watch one five-minute skit and realize that Kattan just might be the most annoying comic this side of Andy Dick, model Sunshine Tutt (her actual name, I kid you not) took more than a month to fully grasp Kattan’s über-annoying personality. The pair married on June 28 in Yosemite Canyon but separated a month later, ultimately filing for a formal separation this past week. You may recall Kattan as that whiny, pesky guy with the annoying voice on SNL between 1996 and 2003, while you might remember Tutt from…..I don’t know, but I’m guessing she’s done an ad for jeans or perfume that you’ve seen at some point, somewhere. The relationship is now over, having had its official beginning when the pair became engaged on Christmas Eve 2006. But hey, they had a great, memorable month together and that’s really all you can ask for from a marriage, right?
Monday, August 25, 2008
Gym teachers are not good criminals, Ted Stevens gets a lesson in justice and Olympic taekwando closes with a bang
- Not a stellar summer hiatus for the cast of The Office. While NBC’s hit comedy may be flying high, its stars have had a bummer of a summer, with Craig Phillip Robinson, a.k.a. Darryl Philbin, getting hit with felony drug charges last week and Rainn Wilson now offering up one of the worst films of the summer. Yes, The Rocker is as bad as it looks. Wilson plays a flabby, 9-to-5 guy who tries to seize his one last shot at glory by forcing his way into his nephew’s band. He plays Fish Fishman (the name, appropriately enough, signifies the total lack of effort and imagination woven throughout the script), drummer for ‘80s rockers Vesuvius. When the band hits it big, they dump Fishman and he’s bitter for two decades, right up to the point when his nephew’s band loses its drummer just before a big gig at the prom. The Fish steps in and through a series of plot twists more unbelievable than Rosie O’Donnell winning the Miss USA pageant, the band becomes a YouTube sensation and goes on a national tour. From there, the plot is as predictable and trite as you could ever imagine, ending with a sappy, feel-good conclusion that a first-grader could have written. Throughout the movie, there are plenty of tired ‘80s hair metal clichés and gags, so there’s that to look forward to as well. All told, a truly regrettable movie that makes felony drug charges look like a good way to spend your summer by comparison…..
- Another sign that you might be better off staring straight ahead in class at medical school and not actually interacting with classmates….meet Jeremy Noyes of Erie, Pa. Seems Noyes is a bit chatty in class and informed one med school mate that he was attempting to recruit a New Zealand woman and her 4-year-old daughter to start a society of sex slaves that would live on a farm or island of some sort in a rather cult-ish setup. According to a sworn statement by the FBI, it began investigating Noyes on Aug. 13 after receiving a tip about his demented plan. And this man wanted to be a doctor, America. Because who wouldn’t want a guy like that as their physician? Are you freaking serious? You want to start your own society of sex slaves and you’re trying to recruit someone from halfway around the world to start the society along with her daughter who isn't even old enough for kindergarten? How sick are you, Noyes? I say this out of kindness, bearing in mind that you were stopped because you were dumb enough to open your mouth and share this plan, but my man, that’s the kind of thing you want to keep to yourself. People are funny that way, they take it serious when you say you want to start your own society of sex slaves on a remote island and include young children. Other than Michael Jackson, Gary Glitter and Roman Polanski, no one is going to appreciate that kind of thinking……
- Angel Matos just doesn’t seem to grasp the Olympic spirit. He qualified for and competed in the Summer Olympics in the sport of taekwondo and he’s even a former Olympic champion in the event. However, anyone with a true concept of what the Olympics are all about probably wouldn’t kick a referee in the face during a taekwondo bronze medal match in Beijing after that referee disqualified him. Yet that’s exactly what Matos did after referee Chakir Chelbat of Sweden disqualified him for taking too much injury time. If you haven’t seen the video of this yet, you need to hit up YouTube and find it. Matos just winds up and delivers a boot to Chelbat’s face after the disqualification as stunned athletes, coaches and fans look on. Now, Matos, the 2000 Olympic champion from Cuba, and his coach face a life ban from their sport. Ironically, Matos was winning 3-2 with just over a minute left in the second round when the disqualification happened. At that time, he fell to the mat after being hit by his opponent, Kazakhstan's Arman Chilmanov. Instead of getting up, Matos lay down, awaiting medical attention. Before that medical attention came, he was DQ’d. At that point, he was miraculously able to rise up and push one judge, then push and kick Chelbat in the face. The kick Chelbat with blood pouring from a gash in his lip while Matos continued his boorish act by spitting on the floor. He was then escorted out of the arena, leaving a stunned crowd in his wake. “We didn't expect anything like what you have witnessed to occur,” said World Taekwondo Federation secretary general Yang Jin-suk. “I am at a loss for words.” Matos wasn’t the only one making an ass of himself over the outcome of the match. His coach, Leudis Gonzalez, is also staring down a lifetime for his angry reaction and claiming the Kazakhs had tried to fix the match. Verrrry classy, Cubans, very classy. Nothing represents your country quite like physically assaulting the referee when a call doesn’t go your way. Look, no one likes to lose and we would even overlook you throwing a chair or punching a wall, at least to a certain extent. Heck, launch into an expletive-filled rant against the ref, even that would eventually be forgotten. But when you go WWE and superkick the ref because he disqualified you, you’ve definitely earned a lifetime ban from your sport and then some, maybe even a nice assault charge…..
- Ted Stevens seems to be under the misguided impression that the justice system is one that is set up for the maximum convenience of the accused. Sen. Stevens is the senior senator from the state of Alaska who stands accused of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars of free home improvements to his house in Alaska from Alaska-based energy company Veco as bribes to lobby on the company’s behalf in Washington. With his trial looming and a re-election bid on the horizon, Stevens had requested to move the trial from Washington to his home state so he could stand trial by day and campaign on nights and weekends. For some odd reason, a federal judge rejected the request and decided that the case must stay in our nation’s capital. Weird….not allowing a defendant to move their trial to better facilitate their re-election bid. Besides, where is Stevens going to find a friendly judge in Washington who he has political ties to like he could have found back in Alaska? It’s almost like this judge is more concerned with having a fair, by-the-book trial than he is on helping Stevens get acquitted and run a successful re-election campaign at the same time. Of course, Stevens seems to be ignoring the fact that most of his constituents aren't going to be too hep on voting for a candidate who is facing seven counts of making false statements on his Senate financial disclosure forms. Best of success with the re-election bid. Teddy, I’m sure you’ll have an….um….interesting campaign.
- If you’re committing a felony and you’re not looking to go to prison, why the hell would you be using a cell phone for any part of that crime? Just thinking out loud here, but cell phones are one of the easiest things for the cops to trace, investigate the use of and turn against you when it comes time for your trial. But don’t take my word for it, check out the case against Beth Ann Chester of Pittsburgh, Pa., a former high school gym teacher now headed to prison for three years because of an affair with one of her students. Seems Ms. Chester got after it with a 14-year-old boy in one of her classes, which would have been a big enough problem. However, sending the boy erotic text messages took the crime to a sick and stupid new low. After all, uncovering text messages you’ve sent or received is one of the easiest things for law enforcement to do. You may as well send a copy of the text message right to the cops to cut out the middleman and the need for them to go through the process of getting a warrant. But Chester’s stupidity didn’t end there, oh no. She compounded her error further by calling her teen lover after she had been charged, pissing off the prosecution even more. Now, Chester has pleaded guilty to statutory sexual assault, corruption of a minor and criminal use of a cell phone. Way to hit the trifecta, Beth. You get to spend the next three years in the hole now and this kid gets to enjoy quasi-celebrity status among his classmates for hitting it with a teacher, then years of therapy once the weight of what you did to him sinks in…..
- Another sign that you might be better off staring straight ahead in class at medical school and not actually interacting with classmates….meet Jeremy Noyes of Erie, Pa. Seems Noyes is a bit chatty in class and informed one med school mate that he was attempting to recruit a New Zealand woman and her 4-year-old daughter to start a society of sex slaves that would live on a farm or island of some sort in a rather cult-ish setup. According to a sworn statement by the FBI, it began investigating Noyes on Aug. 13 after receiving a tip about his demented plan. And this man wanted to be a doctor, America. Because who wouldn’t want a guy like that as their physician? Are you freaking serious? You want to start your own society of sex slaves and you’re trying to recruit someone from halfway around the world to start the society along with her daughter who isn't even old enough for kindergarten? How sick are you, Noyes? I say this out of kindness, bearing in mind that you were stopped because you were dumb enough to open your mouth and share this plan, but my man, that’s the kind of thing you want to keep to yourself. People are funny that way, they take it serious when you say you want to start your own society of sex slaves on a remote island and include young children. Other than Michael Jackson, Gary Glitter and Roman Polanski, no one is going to appreciate that kind of thinking……
- Angel Matos just doesn’t seem to grasp the Olympic spirit. He qualified for and competed in the Summer Olympics in the sport of taekwondo and he’s even a former Olympic champion in the event. However, anyone with a true concept of what the Olympics are all about probably wouldn’t kick a referee in the face during a taekwondo bronze medal match in Beijing after that referee disqualified him. Yet that’s exactly what Matos did after referee Chakir Chelbat of Sweden disqualified him for taking too much injury time. If you haven’t seen the video of this yet, you need to hit up YouTube and find it. Matos just winds up and delivers a boot to Chelbat’s face after the disqualification as stunned athletes, coaches and fans look on. Now, Matos, the 2000 Olympic champion from Cuba, and his coach face a life ban from their sport. Ironically, Matos was winning 3-2 with just over a minute left in the second round when the disqualification happened. At that time, he fell to the mat after being hit by his opponent, Kazakhstan's Arman Chilmanov. Instead of getting up, Matos lay down, awaiting medical attention. Before that medical attention came, he was DQ’d. At that point, he was miraculously able to rise up and push one judge, then push and kick Chelbat in the face. The kick Chelbat with blood pouring from a gash in his lip while Matos continued his boorish act by spitting on the floor. He was then escorted out of the arena, leaving a stunned crowd in his wake. “We didn't expect anything like what you have witnessed to occur,” said World Taekwondo Federation secretary general Yang Jin-suk. “I am at a loss for words.” Matos wasn’t the only one making an ass of himself over the outcome of the match. His coach, Leudis Gonzalez, is also staring down a lifetime for his angry reaction and claiming the Kazakhs had tried to fix the match. Verrrry classy, Cubans, very classy. Nothing represents your country quite like physically assaulting the referee when a call doesn’t go your way. Look, no one likes to lose and we would even overlook you throwing a chair or punching a wall, at least to a certain extent. Heck, launch into an expletive-filled rant against the ref, even that would eventually be forgotten. But when you go WWE and superkick the ref because he disqualified you, you’ve definitely earned a lifetime ban from your sport and then some, maybe even a nice assault charge…..
- Ted Stevens seems to be under the misguided impression that the justice system is one that is set up for the maximum convenience of the accused. Sen. Stevens is the senior senator from the state of Alaska who stands accused of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars of free home improvements to his house in Alaska from Alaska-based energy company Veco as bribes to lobby on the company’s behalf in Washington. With his trial looming and a re-election bid on the horizon, Stevens had requested to move the trial from Washington to his home state so he could stand trial by day and campaign on nights and weekends. For some odd reason, a federal judge rejected the request and decided that the case must stay in our nation’s capital. Weird….not allowing a defendant to move their trial to better facilitate their re-election bid. Besides, where is Stevens going to find a friendly judge in Washington who he has political ties to like he could have found back in Alaska? It’s almost like this judge is more concerned with having a fair, by-the-book trial than he is on helping Stevens get acquitted and run a successful re-election campaign at the same time. Of course, Stevens seems to be ignoring the fact that most of his constituents aren't going to be too hep on voting for a candidate who is facing seven counts of making false statements on his Senate financial disclosure forms. Best of success with the re-election bid. Teddy, I’m sure you’ll have an….um….interesting campaign.
- If you’re committing a felony and you’re not looking to go to prison, why the hell would you be using a cell phone for any part of that crime? Just thinking out loud here, but cell phones are one of the easiest things for the cops to trace, investigate the use of and turn against you when it comes time for your trial. But don’t take my word for it, check out the case against Beth Ann Chester of Pittsburgh, Pa., a former high school gym teacher now headed to prison for three years because of an affair with one of her students. Seems Ms. Chester got after it with a 14-year-old boy in one of her classes, which would have been a big enough problem. However, sending the boy erotic text messages took the crime to a sick and stupid new low. After all, uncovering text messages you’ve sent or received is one of the easiest things for law enforcement to do. You may as well send a copy of the text message right to the cops to cut out the middleman and the need for them to go through the process of getting a warrant. But Chester’s stupidity didn’t end there, oh no. She compounded her error further by calling her teen lover after she had been charged, pissing off the prosecution even more. Now, Chester has pleaded guilty to statutory sexual assault, corruption of a minor and criminal use of a cell phone. Way to hit the trifecta, Beth. You get to spend the next three years in the hole now and this kid gets to enjoy quasi-celebrity status among his classmates for hitting it with a teacher, then years of therapy once the weight of what you did to him sinks in…..
Sunday, August 24, 2008
No biting in the Olympics, idiots try to set records and fraudulent sushi
- There are times when three years, nine months in prison just doesn’t seem like a stiff enough sentence, not when dealing with sick puds like Phillip Thompson of Stockton-on-Tees, England. For a man that law enforcement in this town in northeastern England are calling the “librarian” of a child porn ring that possessed more than 250,000 indecent images of children, that sentence could be tripled and it still wouldn’t be stiff enough. Worse still, Thompson distributed his freakery to subscribers in more than 30 countries around the world, making him and international pervert of the highest degree. I’m just thinking out loud here, but I’m putting the odds on Thompson having a MySpace page at 87 percent, give or take a few. You’re not that big a pedophile without frequenting the world’s biggest haven for pedophiles, that’s for sure. Either way, this story can do nothing but make my stomach churn at the mere thought of Thompson and his merry band of freaks sharing and looking at these indecent images, so let’s just keep moving…..
- With the success of Batman, Spiderman, X-Men and other comic book-base films in recent years, studios can’t move fast enough to snap up the rights to what they believe will be the next big movie based on a graphic novel. The hot candidate for that next big hit has been Watchmen, the big-screen adaptation of the comic book by Alan Moore and David Gibbons. The movie is slated for release in March 2009 and it’s already been featured in a cover story on Entertainment Weekly. However, the project hit a speed bump this week when 20th Century Fox (it’s not just the name of a great Doors song, people) claimed that it, not rival Warner Bros., owns the rights to the film and that Warner Bros. failed to acquire those rights. That would keep Warner from putting out the movie, at least until Fox extracted a hefty fee for it - assuming Fox’s argument holds up. So far, Fox is winning the legal battle, with a federal judge refusing to dismiss Fox’s legal action this week. That ruling means the two sides will engage in discovery and proceed with the case, but the judge making the ruling did not offer any opinion on the merits of the case. If I’m betting on this one, it ends with Warner Bros. paying out a major settlement to Fox and everyone coming out of this with even more money in their pockets….well, everyone except movie fans who pay $10 a ticket to see it……
- Leave it to two teenage girls to bring New York City’s food industry to its knees. Okay, so they didn’t exactly go that far, but Kate Stoeckle and Louisa Strauss did reveal significant false advertising and dishonesty in both seafood restaurants and in stores selling items from the sea. Citing a love for both seafood and DNA testing, Stoeckle and Strauss decided to find out whether the sushi they were being served at their favorite Manhattan eateries was the real deal. The pair visited four NYC restaurants and 10 stores, spending around $300 to buy what was billed as high-class sushi. They then shipped their slimy purchases off to a graduate assistant at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. After that, the two graduates of Manhattan’s Trinity School received word that the sushi wasn’t what it was billed to be. Well, it was still raw, slimy and disgusting, so in that sense it was as advertised. However, a DNA coding test that Stoeckle’s scientist-father Mark is a major advocate of proved that the high-class sushi was really lower-grade fish being passed off as the real thing. Kate Stoeckle explained the experiment and her motivation for it thusly, in a way that I’m sure all of us can relate to: “Growing up, DNA bar coding was dinner conversation, so it comes naturally.” Mmm hmm, sure. I know that DNA coding was always a big point of conversation at my house growing up. In fact, it’s all anyone wanted to talk about. Eventually we had to drop a moratorium on the DNA coding talk because it was the only way to get anyone to discuss anything else. Score one for rich, privileged white chicks from Manhattan, taking the seafood industry down a peg……
- This might sound a little extreme, but I believe it’s time to consider banning the Guinness Book of World Records. Sure, it seems harmless to have a publication that records the largest birdhouse made of popsicle sticks, the most people playing the opening riff of “Smoke on the Water” or the most people riding a unicycle at the same time in one place, but the book also inspires knobs like Jim Purol to do what they do. Who is Jim Purol, you ask? Purol is the a-hole who spent two entire days at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California last month, looking to set the record for….wait for it….wait for it….Most Seats Sat in in 48 Hours! Yes, this knob went all around the stadium, sitting down in seat after seat, looking to set a world record. He did so, managing to successfully plop his sorry ass into 39,250 seats in 48 hours. Well done, idiot. You can successfully stand up and sit down, your family must be very proud of you. Of course, Purol didn’t stop there. No, he went on to sit in every one of the stadium’s 92,542 chairs. Awesome, right? Who isn't impressed by a person who can sit down in a chair? And who do we have to thank for this pointless display of sitting? Well, aside from Purol himself and his parents, we can thank the Guinness Book of World Records for “inspiring” Purol to attempt this ginormous waste of time in the first place. If we simply banned the publication, it would force all the losers who try to set world records in similarly moronic feats to shift their focus elsewhere. Something to consider….
- Last time I checked, biting was not an Olympic event, nor was it an acceptable tactic in any Olympic event. Someone should have forwarded that memo to Dzhakhon Kurbanov, a light heavyweight boxer from Tajikistan who was disqualified for biting his opponent on the shoulder during their Olympic quarterfinal bout Tuesday night. Kurbanov’s bout with Kazakhstan's Yerkebulan Shynaliyev was stopped with 17 seconds left in the third round when Kurbanov bit Shynaliyev during a clinch. For some reason, Shynaliyev didn’t appreciate being bitten by his oppnenet and angrily showed the blood on his shoulder to the referee. You can see where Kurbanov might go to the biting tactic, what with being down 12-6 at the time and having virtually no chance to win on points. Of course, he could still have won via knockout, but why bother trying to outbox your opponent when you can just take a bite out of his shoulder? It was the last in a series of rule-bending tactics for Kurbanov, who had already been warned multiple times for shoving and holding during the bout. The DQ was a disappointing ending for Kurbanov, a 22-year-old fighter who started his Olympic journey off with a bang last week by beating world champion Abbos Atoev in his first bout. Not the best way to cap off your first Olympics, trying to turn your opponent’s shoulder into an after-dinner snack. Ironically,
former world heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield was in attendance for the evening card at Workers' Gymnasium, the same Holyfield who was infamously bitten on the ear by Mike Tyson on June 28, 1997. I didn’t know Mike Tyson was now a boxing coach in Tajikistan, but Mike needs something to occupy his time and I suppose this is as good a pursuit as any….
- With the success of Batman, Spiderman, X-Men and other comic book-base films in recent years, studios can’t move fast enough to snap up the rights to what they believe will be the next big movie based on a graphic novel. The hot candidate for that next big hit has been Watchmen, the big-screen adaptation of the comic book by Alan Moore and David Gibbons. The movie is slated for release in March 2009 and it’s already been featured in a cover story on Entertainment Weekly. However, the project hit a speed bump this week when 20th Century Fox (it’s not just the name of a great Doors song, people) claimed that it, not rival Warner Bros., owns the rights to the film and that Warner Bros. failed to acquire those rights. That would keep Warner from putting out the movie, at least until Fox extracted a hefty fee for it - assuming Fox’s argument holds up. So far, Fox is winning the legal battle, with a federal judge refusing to dismiss Fox’s legal action this week. That ruling means the two sides will engage in discovery and proceed with the case, but the judge making the ruling did not offer any opinion on the merits of the case. If I’m betting on this one, it ends with Warner Bros. paying out a major settlement to Fox and everyone coming out of this with even more money in their pockets….well, everyone except movie fans who pay $10 a ticket to see it……
- Leave it to two teenage girls to bring New York City’s food industry to its knees. Okay, so they didn’t exactly go that far, but Kate Stoeckle and Louisa Strauss did reveal significant false advertising and dishonesty in both seafood restaurants and in stores selling items from the sea. Citing a love for both seafood and DNA testing, Stoeckle and Strauss decided to find out whether the sushi they were being served at their favorite Manhattan eateries was the real deal. The pair visited four NYC restaurants and 10 stores, spending around $300 to buy what was billed as high-class sushi. They then shipped their slimy purchases off to a graduate assistant at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. After that, the two graduates of Manhattan’s Trinity School received word that the sushi wasn’t what it was billed to be. Well, it was still raw, slimy and disgusting, so in that sense it was as advertised. However, a DNA coding test that Stoeckle’s scientist-father Mark is a major advocate of proved that the high-class sushi was really lower-grade fish being passed off as the real thing. Kate Stoeckle explained the experiment and her motivation for it thusly, in a way that I’m sure all of us can relate to: “Growing up, DNA bar coding was dinner conversation, so it comes naturally.” Mmm hmm, sure. I know that DNA coding was always a big point of conversation at my house growing up. In fact, it’s all anyone wanted to talk about. Eventually we had to drop a moratorium on the DNA coding talk because it was the only way to get anyone to discuss anything else. Score one for rich, privileged white chicks from Manhattan, taking the seafood industry down a peg……
- This might sound a little extreme, but I believe it’s time to consider banning the Guinness Book of World Records. Sure, it seems harmless to have a publication that records the largest birdhouse made of popsicle sticks, the most people playing the opening riff of “Smoke on the Water” or the most people riding a unicycle at the same time in one place, but the book also inspires knobs like Jim Purol to do what they do. Who is Jim Purol, you ask? Purol is the a-hole who spent two entire days at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California last month, looking to set the record for….wait for it….wait for it….Most Seats Sat in in 48 Hours! Yes, this knob went all around the stadium, sitting down in seat after seat, looking to set a world record. He did so, managing to successfully plop his sorry ass into 39,250 seats in 48 hours. Well done, idiot. You can successfully stand up and sit down, your family must be very proud of you. Of course, Purol didn’t stop there. No, he went on to sit in every one of the stadium’s 92,542 chairs. Awesome, right? Who isn't impressed by a person who can sit down in a chair? And who do we have to thank for this pointless display of sitting? Well, aside from Purol himself and his parents, we can thank the Guinness Book of World Records for “inspiring” Purol to attempt this ginormous waste of time in the first place. If we simply banned the publication, it would force all the losers who try to set world records in similarly moronic feats to shift their focus elsewhere. Something to consider….
- Last time I checked, biting was not an Olympic event, nor was it an acceptable tactic in any Olympic event. Someone should have forwarded that memo to Dzhakhon Kurbanov, a light heavyweight boxer from Tajikistan who was disqualified for biting his opponent on the shoulder during their Olympic quarterfinal bout Tuesday night. Kurbanov’s bout with Kazakhstan's Yerkebulan Shynaliyev was stopped with 17 seconds left in the third round when Kurbanov bit Shynaliyev during a clinch. For some reason, Shynaliyev didn’t appreciate being bitten by his oppnenet and angrily showed the blood on his shoulder to the referee. You can see where Kurbanov might go to the biting tactic, what with being down 12-6 at the time and having virtually no chance to win on points. Of course, he could still have won via knockout, but why bother trying to outbox your opponent when you can just take a bite out of his shoulder? It was the last in a series of rule-bending tactics for Kurbanov, who had already been warned multiple times for shoving and holding during the bout. The DQ was a disappointing ending for Kurbanov, a 22-year-old fighter who started his Olympic journey off with a bang last week by beating world champion Abbos Atoev in his first bout. Not the best way to cap off your first Olympics, trying to turn your opponent’s shoulder into an after-dinner snack. Ironically,
former world heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield was in attendance for the evening card at Workers' Gymnasium, the same Holyfield who was infamously bitten on the ear by Mike Tyson on June 28, 1997. I didn’t know Mike Tyson was now a boxing coach in Tajikistan, but Mike needs something to occupy his time and I suppose this is as good a pursuit as any….
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Bad days for Gary Glitter, an Ivy League knob and a solid, flag-waving protest
- Here you go, tech dorks (okay, so I’m one of you), your next big “get” is about to make its debut as a worldwide “must-have” item. The “wallet phone” has been available in Japan since 2004, but it hasn’t been a factor in the tech market anywhere outside the Land of the Rising Sun. Soon, Japanese tech companies will be launching a worldwide marketing push for the phone, which relies on a small computer chip called FeliCa, which is embedded in the phone. The chip communicates with a reader device at stores, train stations, vending machines, etc. for cashless payments. Sony Corp. is the maker of the phone, which uses technology common in smart cards. Smart cards are more popular in Europe than the United States at this point, but if Japanese companies like NTT DoCoMo have their way, this technology will be in American hands more often and in short order……
- Stories like that of Natalie du Toit are what makes the Olympics great, much more so than tales of Michael Phelps’ greatness or the U.S. men’s basketball team’s return to dominance. See, du Toit is an athlete who lost one of her legs in that horrendous motorcycle accident and yet here she is, competing in first open water swimming race in Olympic history. The 24-year-old South African was right in the thick of the race for most of the tough 6.2 mile course, but fell off the pace near the end and finished 16th on Wednesday. She was obviously disappointed by where she finished, but the spirit and toughness of this amputee made a big impact on anyone who saw her, even if she finished more than a minute behind gold medalist Larisa Ilchenko of Russia. “I tried my best,” du Toit said. “I'm not too happy with it, but I'll be back for 2012.”
She is every bit as tough and talented as the 24 other swimmers she competed against. “My message isn't just to disabled people,” du Toit declared. “It's to everyone out there that you have to work hard. I've been through a lot of ups and downs ... but I've seen a lot of good things along the way. I was able to use the negativism in a good light and say after my accident, 'I can still do it if I work hard.' You have to set dreams, set goals and never give up.” There’s no better way to proclaim that message than to do what du Toit did, not being bitter over what she’s lost and finding a way back. Heck, she even carried the South African flag in the Opening Ceremony and hung with the lead pack much of her race. If not for a problem with her cap, which caught on a buoy and forced her to spend much of the race fiddling with it, making sure it didn't fall off, her time could have been even better. Of course, she would be the last one to use that excuse and it’s why she’s gotten back to where she is. Her courageous swim of 2 hours, 49.9 seconds may not have won a medal, but it should be remembered as more than most medal-winning swims. For a woman who just missed qualifying for the 2000 Sydney Games and saw her life nearly crumble in 2001, it has been an amazing journey. While returning to school on a motorbike after a training session, she collided with a car and sustained massive injuries to her left leg. For a week, her doctors attempted to save the leg but eventually had to amputate at the knee. But du Toit was back in the water six months later and when the open-water swim was added to the program for Beijing, she saw her chance and took it. Du Toit qualified for the Olympics with a fourth-place finish at the World Championships in Spain this year. Even the officials at the venue recognized her efforts;
she received a special gift from officials at the rowing basin: a traditional Chinese drawing encased in a wooden box. The race may not have received as much air time as the Redeem Team, May and Walsh in beach volleyball or Phelps in the pool, but it’s a more powerful image than any of them as these Games wind down….
- A flag-waving march by thousands of people is a classic form of protest, a time-tested way of showing your dissent and showing off a little patriotism in the process. Granted, there are no overturned/burned cars, looted storefronts or violent clashes with cops in riot gear, but you can still get your message across. So when thousands of flag-waving Muslims marched on the United Nations office in Indian Kashmir’s main city, I was happy to see it. Thousands of angry individuals directing their rage at the U.N. to demand that India give up its claim to the region is cool with me. The Kashmir region has been a tinderbox of political unrest for a long time now, so any quick solution is unlikely. In the meantime, why not stage some angry protests, throw out some ultimatums, make hostile demands and have the various sides in the dispute go after one another? How else would you like to pass the time? Sitting down at the negotiating table in some stiff, stuffy board room? Borrrrrring. Let’s battle it out in the streets, have some showdowns and get dissident, everyone!
- Even in the Ivy League, there are ignorant knobs who seem to take immense pride in being ridiculous jackasses who create problems over pointless issues. Witness the following a-hole, who has been busy crusading against ladies’ nights in bars in and around New York City and is now turning his misguided focus to Columbia University’s women’s studies program. His claim is that the program is unconstitutional, which is absurd on many levels. First, anyone can major in women’s studies if they choose, so it’s not exclusionary. Second, what’s wrong with wanting to learn more about the role of women in society, both now and in the past? And oh yeah, who the frak objects to ladies’ nights? The idea is to bring more hot chicks out to the bar, which most guys would consider a win-win situation. Just because the ladies get cheap drinks doesn’t mean there’s anything to gripe about, loser. Heck, if it’s that much of an issue, just have a female friend get a cheap drink and give it to you - that would be if you had any female friends, which, judging by your bass-ackwards stance on women’s issues, I’m guessing you don’t. Nice to know that there are still mindless tools out there with time to waste on the most idiotic of issues…..
- Not a banner day for disgraced British glam rocker Gary Glitter Wednesday. Of course, there really aren't any good days to be Gary Glitter right about now, but the only person to blame for that is Gary Glitter. The G-Man spent nearly three years in a Vietnamese prison for molesting children, so he’s persona non grata in a lot of places right now. For example, he was denied entry to Hong Kong this week after refusing to return to England, officials in Hong Kong said. “The Chinese authorities have informed us that they have refused Paul Gadd entry into Hong Kong,” a spokeswoman for Britain's Foreign Office said. In case you didn’t know, Glitter's real name is Paul Francis Gadd. Another Foreign Office spokesman said Glitter was interviewed by Chinese immigrations officials after arriving in Hong Kong and subsequently turned away “as a result of those interviews.” I wasn’t in the room for any of the interviews, but I’d guess they went something like this:
Official: Aren't you Gary Glitter, the has-been glam rocker?
Glitter: Yes I am, I’m a major celebrity and -
Official: Aren't you a convicted pedophile?
Glitter: Yeah, but -
Official: You need to leave - now.
Of course, Hong Kong government is in good company when it comes to denying entry to glitter; it was the third country to bar Glitter in the last two days. It all started Tuesday night, when Glitter was taken from his prison cell to a flight out of Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, with his itinerary calling for him to change planes in Bangkok en route to London. That was the plan, but when Glitter refused to board a flight to England because of an alleged earache, Thai authorities would not allow him to pass through immigration. According to Lt. Gen. Chatchawal Suksomchit, the chief of Thailand's immigration police, Glitter was denied entry because under Thai immigration laws those convicted of child sex abuse in a foreign country can be barred. Always a safe policy, sticking with the pedophiles you already have in your country and not stocking up on new ones. Thai officials then turned Glitter over to the custody of Thai Airways Wednesday afternoon after he agreed to travel to a third country. In case you don’t know the specifics of Glitter’s pedophilia and sexual freakery, he was convicted in March 2006 of committing “obscene acts with children,” and served two years and nine months of a three-year sentence. The incidents involved two girls, ages 10 and 11, from the southern coastal city of Vung Tau, whom Glitter was found guilty of molesting the girls at his seaside villa in Vung Tau and in nearby hotels. Hard to imagine what country wouldn’t want a fine, upstanding human being like that within its borders…..
- Stories like that of Natalie du Toit are what makes the Olympics great, much more so than tales of Michael Phelps’ greatness or the U.S. men’s basketball team’s return to dominance. See, du Toit is an athlete who lost one of her legs in that horrendous motorcycle accident and yet here she is, competing in first open water swimming race in Olympic history. The 24-year-old South African was right in the thick of the race for most of the tough 6.2 mile course, but fell off the pace near the end and finished 16th on Wednesday. She was obviously disappointed by where she finished, but the spirit and toughness of this amputee made a big impact on anyone who saw her, even if she finished more than a minute behind gold medalist Larisa Ilchenko of Russia. “I tried my best,” du Toit said. “I'm not too happy with it, but I'll be back for 2012.”
She is every bit as tough and talented as the 24 other swimmers she competed against. “My message isn't just to disabled people,” du Toit declared. “It's to everyone out there that you have to work hard. I've been through a lot of ups and downs ... but I've seen a lot of good things along the way. I was able to use the negativism in a good light and say after my accident, 'I can still do it if I work hard.' You have to set dreams, set goals and never give up.” There’s no better way to proclaim that message than to do what du Toit did, not being bitter over what she’s lost and finding a way back. Heck, she even carried the South African flag in the Opening Ceremony and hung with the lead pack much of her race. If not for a problem with her cap, which caught on a buoy and forced her to spend much of the race fiddling with it, making sure it didn't fall off, her time could have been even better. Of course, she would be the last one to use that excuse and it’s why she’s gotten back to where she is. Her courageous swim of 2 hours, 49.9 seconds may not have won a medal, but it should be remembered as more than most medal-winning swims. For a woman who just missed qualifying for the 2000 Sydney Games and saw her life nearly crumble in 2001, it has been an amazing journey. While returning to school on a motorbike after a training session, she collided with a car and sustained massive injuries to her left leg. For a week, her doctors attempted to save the leg but eventually had to amputate at the knee. But du Toit was back in the water six months later and when the open-water swim was added to the program for Beijing, she saw her chance and took it. Du Toit qualified for the Olympics with a fourth-place finish at the World Championships in Spain this year. Even the officials at the venue recognized her efforts;
she received a special gift from officials at the rowing basin: a traditional Chinese drawing encased in a wooden box. The race may not have received as much air time as the Redeem Team, May and Walsh in beach volleyball or Phelps in the pool, but it’s a more powerful image than any of them as these Games wind down….
- A flag-waving march by thousands of people is a classic form of protest, a time-tested way of showing your dissent and showing off a little patriotism in the process. Granted, there are no overturned/burned cars, looted storefronts or violent clashes with cops in riot gear, but you can still get your message across. So when thousands of flag-waving Muslims marched on the United Nations office in Indian Kashmir’s main city, I was happy to see it. Thousands of angry individuals directing their rage at the U.N. to demand that India give up its claim to the region is cool with me. The Kashmir region has been a tinderbox of political unrest for a long time now, so any quick solution is unlikely. In the meantime, why not stage some angry protests, throw out some ultimatums, make hostile demands and have the various sides in the dispute go after one another? How else would you like to pass the time? Sitting down at the negotiating table in some stiff, stuffy board room? Borrrrrring. Let’s battle it out in the streets, have some showdowns and get dissident, everyone!
- Even in the Ivy League, there are ignorant knobs who seem to take immense pride in being ridiculous jackasses who create problems over pointless issues. Witness the following a-hole, who has been busy crusading against ladies’ nights in bars in and around New York City and is now turning his misguided focus to Columbia University’s women’s studies program. His claim is that the program is unconstitutional, which is absurd on many levels. First, anyone can major in women’s studies if they choose, so it’s not exclusionary. Second, what’s wrong with wanting to learn more about the role of women in society, both now and in the past? And oh yeah, who the frak objects to ladies’ nights? The idea is to bring more hot chicks out to the bar, which most guys would consider a win-win situation. Just because the ladies get cheap drinks doesn’t mean there’s anything to gripe about, loser. Heck, if it’s that much of an issue, just have a female friend get a cheap drink and give it to you - that would be if you had any female friends, which, judging by your bass-ackwards stance on women’s issues, I’m guessing you don’t. Nice to know that there are still mindless tools out there with time to waste on the most idiotic of issues…..
- Not a banner day for disgraced British glam rocker Gary Glitter Wednesday. Of course, there really aren't any good days to be Gary Glitter right about now, but the only person to blame for that is Gary Glitter. The G-Man spent nearly three years in a Vietnamese prison for molesting children, so he’s persona non grata in a lot of places right now. For example, he was denied entry to Hong Kong this week after refusing to return to England, officials in Hong Kong said. “The Chinese authorities have informed us that they have refused Paul Gadd entry into Hong Kong,” a spokeswoman for Britain's Foreign Office said. In case you didn’t know, Glitter's real name is Paul Francis Gadd. Another Foreign Office spokesman said Glitter was interviewed by Chinese immigrations officials after arriving in Hong Kong and subsequently turned away “as a result of those interviews.” I wasn’t in the room for any of the interviews, but I’d guess they went something like this:
Official: Aren't you Gary Glitter, the has-been glam rocker?
Glitter: Yes I am, I’m a major celebrity and -
Official: Aren't you a convicted pedophile?
Glitter: Yeah, but -
Official: You need to leave - now.
Of course, Hong Kong government is in good company when it comes to denying entry to glitter; it was the third country to bar Glitter in the last two days. It all started Tuesday night, when Glitter was taken from his prison cell to a flight out of Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, with his itinerary calling for him to change planes in Bangkok en route to London. That was the plan, but when Glitter refused to board a flight to England because of an alleged earache, Thai authorities would not allow him to pass through immigration. According to Lt. Gen. Chatchawal Suksomchit, the chief of Thailand's immigration police, Glitter was denied entry because under Thai immigration laws those convicted of child sex abuse in a foreign country can be barred. Always a safe policy, sticking with the pedophiles you already have in your country and not stocking up on new ones. Thai officials then turned Glitter over to the custody of Thai Airways Wednesday afternoon after he agreed to travel to a third country. In case you don’t know the specifics of Glitter’s pedophilia and sexual freakery, he was convicted in March 2006 of committing “obscene acts with children,” and served two years and nine months of a three-year sentence. The incidents involved two girls, ages 10 and 11, from the southern coastal city of Vung Tau, whom Glitter was found guilty of molesting the girls at his seaside villa in Vung Tau and in nearby hotels. Hard to imagine what country wouldn’t want a fine, upstanding human being like that within its borders…..
Friday, August 22, 2008
Hip-hop lit, I talk to the IOC and a horror in Iraq
- To be honest, I haven’t had much interest in the military conflict between Georgia and Russia. Georgia v. Russia is several continents away, two countries battling over control of a region that has nothing to do with my daily life here in the United States. As long as neither of them is looking to attack the U.S. or start a world war, let them settle their own differences. That was my thinking, right up ‘til the point Russian President Dmitry Medvedev made things interesting with a good “moron” blast. Any time an international leader for a world power wants to drop an idiot bomb on someone, count me in. Medvedev was looking to crack on Georgian leaders who have accused the Russians of ethnic cleansing and he broke out the heavy verbal artillery. “The world has seen that even today, there are political morons who are ready to kill innocent people in order to satisfy their self-serving interests,” growled Medvedev while speaking at a military outpost in Vladikavkaz, nearing the Russia-Georgia border. Georgian Ambassador Vasil Sikharulidze fired back, saying the Russian invasion of the South Ossetia region of Georgia was planned out well in advance, as moving so many tanks and troops in a short time on Aug. 7 could not have been spur of the moment. This conflict has been steadily escalating since then, but it wasn’t until Medvedev decided to liven things up with his “moron” blast that I really became interested. Thanks for that, D., keep it coming…..
- One plate of crow for the Cincinnati Bengals, please. The team that has secured the mantle as the most felonious team in the NFL is bringing back troubled receiver Chris Henry because of injuries to their two top receivers. The move was made official on Tuesday just one month after head coach Marvin Lewis emphatically ruled out and classified as inappropriate. Henry was suspended by the NFL for two games in 2006 and for the first eight games of last season for repeatedly violating its player conduct policies and he must sit out the first four games of this season for his latest court case, which ended in a mistrial with the assault charges against him later dropped. Before training camp began last month, the Bengals released him, with owner Mike Brown stating in no uncertain terms that Henry had to go. "His conduct can no longer be tolerated," Brown said at the time. "The Bengals tried for an extended period of time to support Chris and his potentially bright career. We had hoped to guide him toward an appropriate standard of personal responsibility that this community would support and that would allow him to play in the NFL. ... But those efforts end today, as we move on with what is best for our team." Strong words, but when a guy has been arrested five times since he joined your team, makes sense. Then at the team’s annual preseason luncheon on July 22, Lewis seemed to back up his owner’s stance. “I'm not interested,” Lewis declared. “I don't think it would be productive for our football team. You have to be a productive part to be an NFL player, and there's responsibilities to being an NFL player. It's a privilege, it's not a right. There's a lot that comes with being an NFL football player.” Of course, that was then and this is now, after \Pro Bowl receiver Chad Johnson sprained his left shoulder during a 27-10 preseason loss to Detroit on Sunday night and Pro Bowl receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh has missed both preseason games with a hamstring injury. I guess the Bengals are committed to cleaning up their image and establishing high standards for team character….as long as it won't cause them to lose games. I’m all for giving guys second chances, but he’s been arrested five times and suspended three times by the NFL, he’s well beyond his allotted slate of chances and halfway through someone else’s supply of them. Plus, the Bengals are a team that had 10 players arrested over a 14-month span, so they just don’t have the same leeway other franchises might have in this situation. Nice to know that my favorite team of felons is still doing business the exact same way…..
- The Adib al-Jumaili mosque is not exactly the kind of warm, welcoming place of worship that you would expect most religious centers to be. The building has bloodstains all over its walls and on its floor, chunks of hair scattered around the interior and was home to the bodies of two dozens victims, killed by a Shiite militia known as the Mehdi Army. The mosque was abandoned as the group pulled back from several strongholds around Iraq. Those tortured and killed were accused of being spies for the U.S. military, but the torture they went through seems to go far beyond what anyone could imagine, even for a spy. several strongholds around Iraq. Those tortured and killed were accused of being spies for the U.S. military, but the torture they went through seems to go far beyond what anyone could imagine, even for a spy. “This is what they used for hanging," explains Abu Muhanad, leader of a U.S.-backed group that now controls the mosque. “Here is a chain we found tied to an old man's body.” Making matters worse is that residents who live near the mosque say they could hear the victims’ screams. The scumbags in the Mehdi Army controlled of the mosque from at least January 2007 until May of this year. Family members of many victims don't know why their loved ones disappeared. Among the victims were both Shiite and Sunni Muslims, making the brutality even more perplexing. Even though the atrocities in the mosque are over, a chilling reminder of their grisly reality remains. Spray painted on the walls is a warning: “Spies, you will dig your own graves. Long live the Mehdi Army.” Now controlling the mosque are the Sons of Iraq, a local armed group that is largely financed by the Americans working alongside the Iraqi police. All in all, this is just one more horrific reminder of what a massive tragedy the war in Iraq has been from its start to its yet-to-be-determined finish at some mythical date in the years ahead…..
- There have been some great moments in these Olympics: the U.S. men’s basketball team’s games, Michael Phelps’ historic run, the excitement of the men’s 100 meters at the track and field competition, even the women’s marathon. However, I feel like it’s time for the International Olympic Committee and I to have a talk. So if the rest of you could excuse us for a moment, the IOC and I need to chat. I’ll give you a minute to back off…..all right, now that it’s just us, IOC, there are a few “sports” at the Olympics we need to talk about. Let’s begin with trampoline gymnastics. To be blunt, it’s not a sport. If I can see a couple of 10-year-olds in my neighborhood doing it in their bare feet before going inside to watch Hannah Montana, it doesn’t belong in the Olympics. Climbing on a rectangular trampoline with an X in the middle and bouncing up and down for a few minutes doesn’t qualify you to be an Olympian, it makes you one of the people in my back yard at a cookout. However, compared to race walking, trampoline gymnastics may not be quite as bad. Race walking is just a souped-up version of the power walking that old people do when they walk at the mall in the morning. They pump their arms and look ridiculous, all while trying to out-stroll their competition. Since when is walking a sport? Almost all of us walk the majority of our day, every day. The ability to walk doesn’t make you an Olympian, it makes you a human being with an intact spine and functioning legs. Lastly, let’s tackle dressage, wherein I saw dudes in tuxedo jackets and top hats prancing horses around a giant square inside a small stadium. Great, you can make a horse dance and walk in a straight line, congrats. You can be the next horse whisperer, not the next Olympian. A good rule of thumb is that if you can do your “sport” in a tuxedo coat and top hat, it’s not a sport. So if you could tackle these issues before the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, IOC, that would really make things a lot better. Stop eliminating actual sports like softball and baseball from future games and start getting rid of non-sports like race walking, anything involving a trampoline and dressage…..
- For those of you who have been lamenting the lack of good hip-hop literature, the return of hip-hop magazine the Source should come as welcome news. The publication ended up in bankruptcy last year but is now being revived and readied to celebrate its 20th anniversary. “It’s a very seminal period, an opportunity to both celebrate 20 years of content and the fact that the Source was once a leader in chronicling the culture of hip-hip,” said L. Londell McMillan, who along with investment banker Jeffrey Scott purchased the Source this year. The first issue upon the mag’s return will feature four different covers, each showing a hip-hop pioneer: LL Cool J, Queen Latifah and Nas, all photographed by legendary director Spike Lee. Inside, there will be an in-depth discussion of hip-hop’s role in society, led by Public Enemy’s Chuck D. The reinvented magazine will also showcase sections lifestyle, travel, business and education. The hope for its proprietors is that the Source will once again rise and rival some of the very magazines whose rise it helped facilitate, publications such as Vibe, which just celebrated its 15th anniversary. As someone who isn't a big hip-hop fan but does listen to a few select artists, I wish the Source well and hope it succeeds in shining a light on a genre of music that too often gets a bad rap…..
- One plate of crow for the Cincinnati Bengals, please. The team that has secured the mantle as the most felonious team in the NFL is bringing back troubled receiver Chris Henry because of injuries to their two top receivers. The move was made official on Tuesday just one month after head coach Marvin Lewis emphatically ruled out and classified as inappropriate. Henry was suspended by the NFL for two games in 2006 and for the first eight games of last season for repeatedly violating its player conduct policies and he must sit out the first four games of this season for his latest court case, which ended in a mistrial with the assault charges against him later dropped. Before training camp began last month, the Bengals released him, with owner Mike Brown stating in no uncertain terms that Henry had to go. "His conduct can no longer be tolerated," Brown said at the time. "The Bengals tried for an extended period of time to support Chris and his potentially bright career. We had hoped to guide him toward an appropriate standard of personal responsibility that this community would support and that would allow him to play in the NFL. ... But those efforts end today, as we move on with what is best for our team." Strong words, but when a guy has been arrested five times since he joined your team, makes sense. Then at the team’s annual preseason luncheon on July 22, Lewis seemed to back up his owner’s stance. “I'm not interested,” Lewis declared. “I don't think it would be productive for our football team. You have to be a productive part to be an NFL player, and there's responsibilities to being an NFL player. It's a privilege, it's not a right. There's a lot that comes with being an NFL football player.” Of course, that was then and this is now, after \Pro Bowl receiver Chad Johnson sprained his left shoulder during a 27-10 preseason loss to Detroit on Sunday night and Pro Bowl receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh has missed both preseason games with a hamstring injury. I guess the Bengals are committed to cleaning up their image and establishing high standards for team character….as long as it won't cause them to lose games. I’m all for giving guys second chances, but he’s been arrested five times and suspended three times by the NFL, he’s well beyond his allotted slate of chances and halfway through someone else’s supply of them. Plus, the Bengals are a team that had 10 players arrested over a 14-month span, so they just don’t have the same leeway other franchises might have in this situation. Nice to know that my favorite team of felons is still doing business the exact same way…..
- The Adib al-Jumaili mosque is not exactly the kind of warm, welcoming place of worship that you would expect most religious centers to be. The building has bloodstains all over its walls and on its floor, chunks of hair scattered around the interior and was home to the bodies of two dozens victims, killed by a Shiite militia known as the Mehdi Army. The mosque was abandoned as the group pulled back from several strongholds around Iraq. Those tortured and killed were accused of being spies for the U.S. military, but the torture they went through seems to go far beyond what anyone could imagine, even for a spy. several strongholds around Iraq. Those tortured and killed were accused of being spies for the U.S. military, but the torture they went through seems to go far beyond what anyone could imagine, even for a spy. “This is what they used for hanging," explains Abu Muhanad, leader of a U.S.-backed group that now controls the mosque. “Here is a chain we found tied to an old man's body.” Making matters worse is that residents who live near the mosque say they could hear the victims’ screams. The scumbags in the Mehdi Army controlled of the mosque from at least January 2007 until May of this year. Family members of many victims don't know why their loved ones disappeared. Among the victims were both Shiite and Sunni Muslims, making the brutality even more perplexing. Even though the atrocities in the mosque are over, a chilling reminder of their grisly reality remains. Spray painted on the walls is a warning: “Spies, you will dig your own graves. Long live the Mehdi Army.” Now controlling the mosque are the Sons of Iraq, a local armed group that is largely financed by the Americans working alongside the Iraqi police. All in all, this is just one more horrific reminder of what a massive tragedy the war in Iraq has been from its start to its yet-to-be-determined finish at some mythical date in the years ahead…..
- There have been some great moments in these Olympics: the U.S. men’s basketball team’s games, Michael Phelps’ historic run, the excitement of the men’s 100 meters at the track and field competition, even the women’s marathon. However, I feel like it’s time for the International Olympic Committee and I to have a talk. So if the rest of you could excuse us for a moment, the IOC and I need to chat. I’ll give you a minute to back off…..all right, now that it’s just us, IOC, there are a few “sports” at the Olympics we need to talk about. Let’s begin with trampoline gymnastics. To be blunt, it’s not a sport. If I can see a couple of 10-year-olds in my neighborhood doing it in their bare feet before going inside to watch Hannah Montana, it doesn’t belong in the Olympics. Climbing on a rectangular trampoline with an X in the middle and bouncing up and down for a few minutes doesn’t qualify you to be an Olympian, it makes you one of the people in my back yard at a cookout. However, compared to race walking, trampoline gymnastics may not be quite as bad. Race walking is just a souped-up version of the power walking that old people do when they walk at the mall in the morning. They pump their arms and look ridiculous, all while trying to out-stroll their competition. Since when is walking a sport? Almost all of us walk the majority of our day, every day. The ability to walk doesn’t make you an Olympian, it makes you a human being with an intact spine and functioning legs. Lastly, let’s tackle dressage, wherein I saw dudes in tuxedo jackets and top hats prancing horses around a giant square inside a small stadium. Great, you can make a horse dance and walk in a straight line, congrats. You can be the next horse whisperer, not the next Olympian. A good rule of thumb is that if you can do your “sport” in a tuxedo coat and top hat, it’s not a sport. So if you could tackle these issues before the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, IOC, that would really make things a lot better. Stop eliminating actual sports like softball and baseball from future games and start getting rid of non-sports like race walking, anything involving a trampoline and dressage…..
- For those of you who have been lamenting the lack of good hip-hop literature, the return of hip-hop magazine the Source should come as welcome news. The publication ended up in bankruptcy last year but is now being revived and readied to celebrate its 20th anniversary. “It’s a very seminal period, an opportunity to both celebrate 20 years of content and the fact that the Source was once a leader in chronicling the culture of hip-hip,” said L. Londell McMillan, who along with investment banker Jeffrey Scott purchased the Source this year. The first issue upon the mag’s return will feature four different covers, each showing a hip-hop pioneer: LL Cool J, Queen Latifah and Nas, all photographed by legendary director Spike Lee. Inside, there will be an in-depth discussion of hip-hop’s role in society, led by Public Enemy’s Chuck D. The reinvented magazine will also showcase sections lifestyle, travel, business and education. The hope for its proprietors is that the Source will once again rise and rival some of the very magazines whose rise it helped facilitate, publications such as Vibe, which just celebrated its 15th anniversary. As someone who isn't a big hip-hop fan but does listen to a few select artists, I wish the Source well and hope it succeeds in shining a light on a genre of music that too often gets a bad rap…..
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Video games are your friend, college presidents may be too and a chance of a lifetime for an Iraq veteran....or not
- File this under the heading of tragic, terrible irony. A woman in Houston is going to face some serious criminal charges after leaving her 3-year-old son locked inside her truck in 90-degree heat while she went to work her shift - at a freaking hospital. Yes, this idiot works at a hospital and yet she seems to be ignorant of how dangerous it is to leave anyone, let alone a toddler, locked inside a vehicle with the windows up during a hot summer day. The best part of the whole situation is the woman’s explanation of what happened. The mother of Cameron Thomas Boone says she simply forgot to drop the child off at day care prior to going to work. Are you freaking kidding me? You forgot to drop him off so that means you’re totally ignorant to his presence in the vehicle? Did the kid become invisible after you thought you dropped him off at day care? Do you automatically become oblivious to his presence any time you think he’s not with you? Who can be totally oblivious to their kid being in the car and forget all about them like that? He was three years old, for God’s sake, there’s no way that kid was quiet the whole ride. Chalk this up as more evidence that just because you are physically able to have a child doesn’t mean it’s a good idea for you to do so. A lot of people are just far too big of a moron to be a good parent…..
- Protests and protestors can be awesome for a wide range of reasons. You don’t need to have a solid, viable, rational cause to be a good rioter, protestor or social dissident. You don’t need to be smart, well-educated, reasonable or logical - in fact, it’s almost better if you aren't. While a highly organized, powerful mob of people clashing with police and threatening to burn down a government building or torch some police cars is great, so is a nutty group of 20 pro-sovereignty activists in Hawaii protesting for their state’s right to be a free and independent entity. For the second time this year, these whack-a-doos seized control of a state palace in Honolulu and posted signs reading “Property of the Kingdom of Hawaiian Trust.” They also locked the gates forced a few local cops to scale the gates and take back control of the historic Iolani Palace. What their quasi-hostile takeover accomplished, I don’t know. But that’s part of the greatness of protests, riots and other acts of social dissidence: they’re largely subjective. What one person deems a failure another person sees as a wildly successful riot. Also adding fuel to this fire is the fact that these activists are fighting for someone fairly irrational that will never, ever happen. There’s no war going on, no major political conflict and no mass push toward their goal. They are standing alone, a couple of dozen loonies against the world. Protest on, sovereignty rights activists of Hawaii, protest on…..
- In case you were wondering what you were fighting for in Iraq, American military personnel, allow me to remind you. Okay, so that’s not fair, none of us knows what the hell our troops have been in Iraq for, other than following the orders of idiotic leaders who fabricated evidence to justify the war with the American public. But as a reward for his efforts in that unjustified war, one fortunate veteran will receive….wait for it….a guest spot on ABC’s daytime soap opera “All My Children”! It’s true, no joke. The show has issued an open casting call for all Iraq war veterans to fill the role of a character named Brot. A quick aside….Brot? What the hell is that? Brot is something you put on the grill (spelled differently, but same sound), not a human being. Is that the best name you could come up with? Brot? A guy risks his life on the battlefield and he gets to be Brot? Brot’s story line will be as a wounded war veteran whose love interest believes is dead. He will allow her to think that and remain in hiding, which I’m sure matters to someone…somewhere….maybe. Theoretically the story line will put a spotlight on the difficulties many veterans face after returning for combat. Those looking to audition for the role can contact the show’s New York casting director. Of course, after serving with W. as your commander-in-chief, working for the knobs who run soap operas is actually a massive upgrade….
- College students, your president might not be as much of a tool as you think. No, seriously, the guy in the suit who seems to do nothing but attend luncheons, ribbon-cutting ceremonies and make long-winded speeches may be on your side, at least when it comes to one important issue: drinking. College presidents from nearly 100 colleges and universities have joined a group called the Amethyst Institute, an organization pushing our nation’s lawmakers to lower the legal drinking age from 21 to 18. The belief of the Amethyst Institute is that the current laws encourage underage drinking because the majority of college students are under the age of 21 even as alcohol is just about the most omnipresent thing on every campus, everywhere. “This is a law that is routinely evaded,” said John McCardell, the former president at Middlebury College in Vermont and a man with a talent for stating the obvious. No kidding, ace, college kids under 21 routinely break the law by drinking? What are you going to tell me next, that college students also like to sleep late, procrastinate on assignments and smoke weed? Next week, you can announce that the sky is blue and grass is green, those would be equally stunning revelations. Predictably, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (M.A.D.D.) isn't down with the idea to lower the legal drinking age, saying it would cause more deaths. On the opposing side are presidents from schools such as Duke, Dartmouth, Ohio State, Syracuse and Colgate. So think long and hard about your stance, M.A.D.D. You’re going up against some freaking smart people, even some Ivy Leaguers. Not that lowering the legal drinking age is going to make a difference one way or the other, of course. Kids who want to drink will find a way, law against it or not. If someone who is 18 or 19 wants booze on a college campus, he or she will find it. That will be the case whether it’s legal or not. So this whole debate is largely irrelevant, just don’t tell that to those fighting the battle…..
- Could video games actually be a valuable tool in helping students develop and refine their reasoning and cognitive processing skills? If you believe the cumulative results of several recent studies that were presented at the American Psychological Association’s convention in Boston this week, the answer is yes. According to those studies, students who play video games develop reasoning and planning skills that could help them throughout their lives. One study conducted by researchers at Fordham University asked 122 fifth, sixth and seventh graders to think out loud while playing a video game for 20 minutes. The study showed that many students, especially the younger ones, developed a series of problem-solving skills to help them succeed in the game. Creating these short-term goals could translate into other areas of life, thus making them more well-rounded, intelligent people. So I can safely say that I am correct in assuming that the game these kids played was Grand Theft Auto IV. After all, what better prepares you for life than stealing car, slapping ho’s, robbing people and sexing it up in the back seat of cars with hookers? Who doesn’t develop better reasoning and problem-solving skills during that type of activity? So parents, next time your child wants to keep playing video games instead of doing their homework, think twice before pulling the plug on them…..
- Protests and protestors can be awesome for a wide range of reasons. You don’t need to have a solid, viable, rational cause to be a good rioter, protestor or social dissident. You don’t need to be smart, well-educated, reasonable or logical - in fact, it’s almost better if you aren't. While a highly organized, powerful mob of people clashing with police and threatening to burn down a government building or torch some police cars is great, so is a nutty group of 20 pro-sovereignty activists in Hawaii protesting for their state’s right to be a free and independent entity. For the second time this year, these whack-a-doos seized control of a state palace in Honolulu and posted signs reading “Property of the Kingdom of Hawaiian Trust.” They also locked the gates forced a few local cops to scale the gates and take back control of the historic Iolani Palace. What their quasi-hostile takeover accomplished, I don’t know. But that’s part of the greatness of protests, riots and other acts of social dissidence: they’re largely subjective. What one person deems a failure another person sees as a wildly successful riot. Also adding fuel to this fire is the fact that these activists are fighting for someone fairly irrational that will never, ever happen. There’s no war going on, no major political conflict and no mass push toward their goal. They are standing alone, a couple of dozen loonies against the world. Protest on, sovereignty rights activists of Hawaii, protest on…..
- In case you were wondering what you were fighting for in Iraq, American military personnel, allow me to remind you. Okay, so that’s not fair, none of us knows what the hell our troops have been in Iraq for, other than following the orders of idiotic leaders who fabricated evidence to justify the war with the American public. But as a reward for his efforts in that unjustified war, one fortunate veteran will receive….wait for it….a guest spot on ABC’s daytime soap opera “All My Children”! It’s true, no joke. The show has issued an open casting call for all Iraq war veterans to fill the role of a character named Brot. A quick aside….Brot? What the hell is that? Brot is something you put on the grill (spelled differently, but same sound), not a human being. Is that the best name you could come up with? Brot? A guy risks his life on the battlefield and he gets to be Brot? Brot’s story line will be as a wounded war veteran whose love interest believes is dead. He will allow her to think that and remain in hiding, which I’m sure matters to someone…somewhere….maybe. Theoretically the story line will put a spotlight on the difficulties many veterans face after returning for combat. Those looking to audition for the role can contact the show’s New York casting director. Of course, after serving with W. as your commander-in-chief, working for the knobs who run soap operas is actually a massive upgrade….
- College students, your president might not be as much of a tool as you think. No, seriously, the guy in the suit who seems to do nothing but attend luncheons, ribbon-cutting ceremonies and make long-winded speeches may be on your side, at least when it comes to one important issue: drinking. College presidents from nearly 100 colleges and universities have joined a group called the Amethyst Institute, an organization pushing our nation’s lawmakers to lower the legal drinking age from 21 to 18. The belief of the Amethyst Institute is that the current laws encourage underage drinking because the majority of college students are under the age of 21 even as alcohol is just about the most omnipresent thing on every campus, everywhere. “This is a law that is routinely evaded,” said John McCardell, the former president at Middlebury College in Vermont and a man with a talent for stating the obvious. No kidding, ace, college kids under 21 routinely break the law by drinking? What are you going to tell me next, that college students also like to sleep late, procrastinate on assignments and smoke weed? Next week, you can announce that the sky is blue and grass is green, those would be equally stunning revelations. Predictably, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (M.A.D.D.) isn't down with the idea to lower the legal drinking age, saying it would cause more deaths. On the opposing side are presidents from schools such as Duke, Dartmouth, Ohio State, Syracuse and Colgate. So think long and hard about your stance, M.A.D.D. You’re going up against some freaking smart people, even some Ivy Leaguers. Not that lowering the legal drinking age is going to make a difference one way or the other, of course. Kids who want to drink will find a way, law against it or not. If someone who is 18 or 19 wants booze on a college campus, he or she will find it. That will be the case whether it’s legal or not. So this whole debate is largely irrelevant, just don’t tell that to those fighting the battle…..
- Could video games actually be a valuable tool in helping students develop and refine their reasoning and cognitive processing skills? If you believe the cumulative results of several recent studies that were presented at the American Psychological Association’s convention in Boston this week, the answer is yes. According to those studies, students who play video games develop reasoning and planning skills that could help them throughout their lives. One study conducted by researchers at Fordham University asked 122 fifth, sixth and seventh graders to think out loud while playing a video game for 20 minutes. The study showed that many students, especially the younger ones, developed a series of problem-solving skills to help them succeed in the game. Creating these short-term goals could translate into other areas of life, thus making them more well-rounded, intelligent people. So I can safely say that I am correct in assuming that the game these kids played was Grand Theft Auto IV. After all, what better prepares you for life than stealing car, slapping ho’s, robbing people and sexing it up in the back seat of cars with hookers? Who doesn’t develop better reasoning and problem-solving skills during that type of activity? So parents, next time your child wants to keep playing video games instead of doing their homework, think twice before pulling the plug on them…..
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Bigfoot enthusiasts are tools, Harry Potter dorks get bad news and Harrold, Texas is packing heat
- So what did you during your summer hiatus? That question is probably one of the first ones actors ask one another when their TV shows start up production on a new season and typically the answers include a lot of talk about vacations, movie projects, etc. For Craig Phillip Robinson of NBC’s hit comedy “The Office,” the answer will be a smidge different. That’s bound to happen when you’re arrested and hit with felony drug charges over summer break. Robinson, who plays the beloved Darryl Philbin on the show, was arrested by Culver City, Ca. police on June 29 on suspicion of drug possession. Police found both ecstasy (also known as MDMA) and methamphetamines on his person, but after making bail Robinson left jail the same night. He was hit this week with two felony counts of drug possession and one count of being under the influence of illegal drugs. Personally, I think the cops were being a bunch of party poopers, to be honest. So dude had some meth and X with him, so what? He was looking to have a good time, rolling with some speed and X, kickin’ it on the weekend. You’re telling me you don’t like to have a good time? Besides, he has a good explanation for the drugs: the time-tested actor’s explanation for such situations, research for a movie role. See, Robinson was in “Pineapple Express,” one of this summer’s best comedies, and I’m sure he did plenty of hands-on research for the role. He got into the habit of hitting it with some booze, weed, X, whatever, and you just caught him when he was cycling off of that stuff. So I urge the judge at Robinson’s Aug. 21 court appearance to take a step back, look at the situation rationally and realize that this is much ado about nothing….
- With the New York Yankees moving into a new stadium next season, you had to figure the fans would get dicked over and sure enough, that’s exactly what’s happening. Sure, there will be a shiny, sparkling new ballpark to enjoy, but at what price? As it happens, the price is 240 percent. That’s the increase that one Yankees season ticket holder will see his seats increase next year as the team opens its new stadium. This unidentified individual paid $250 per ticket, per game this season for his ducats and for a similar seat next season, he’ll pay a whopping $850 per seat. The picture becomes even bleaker when you consider that back in 2001, the same seat cost only $45 per game. Nothing like a 1,788 percent increase over the course of eight years for the same damn product, eh? Look, I get that you need to pay for the cost of the new stadium and that the hundreds and hundreds of millions you make from the YES network, your very own cable network, can’t cover it all, but these increases are ridonkulous. There is no way a new stadium justifies a 240 percent increase from one year to the next. Why don’t you try putting a playoff team on the field before you jerk with fans like that? Whoops, is that a sore subject this season, Yankee honks? My bad….
- Welcome to Harrold, Texas, where they pack heat even in the classroom. In this tiny, sleepy town in the north central part of the state, the local school district has voted to allow teachers and staff members to carry concealed firearms because they believe it will deter and protect against school shootings. Score another one for gun-rights honks, who would probably marry their guns if they could. Right, because what’s better than injecting multiple firearms into a school setting? Nothing could go wrong there, eh? Don’t cut in the lunch line kids, the lunch lady might bust out her 9mm on you. Thinking of talking back in class? Think again. Seriously, though, this is a bad idea on so many levels. You’re going to guarantee that these guns will never go off accidentally or that no disgruntled student will ever be able to wrestle it away from a teacher? And if a student does enter the school with a gun, you think a shootout with teachers, principals and office workers is a good thing? Best of success with it, Harrold, Texas residents, but don’t be surprised if you end up regretting this decision…..
- Bad news for you, dorks/wizards. The release of the final Harry Potter movie has been delayed from this fall to next summer, Warner Bros. announced over the weekend. Initially, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince had been scheduled for a Nov. 21 release, but the studio has elected to push that date back to July 17, 2009. That was news to Entertainment Weekly, which led off its August 22-29 fall-preview issue with a six-page spread featuring Potter star Daniel Radcliffe. Ironically, the studio and the magazine are owned by the same parent company but as is often the case in big business, that doesn’t mean communication is good. This is a good news/bad news situation for Potter fans, because while they will have to wait eight months longer for the film, it is the last one so it at least prolongs the illusion that their favorite character and franchise still matter and are relevant to anyone who isn't pale, pasty, basement-dwelling, Dungeons-and-Dragons-playing and friend-less. Eight more months in the sun for you, dork/wizards, although given the fact that most of you haven’t actually had direct sunlight on your pasty white skin in a long time, that might not be a good thing….
- So you might be asking, are there even bigger losers out there than the tools who dress up in Harry Potter costumes and camp out for the new HP books and movies when they’re released. It’s a good question and while it’s tough to answer, I have some solid evidence that the answer may in fact be “yes.” Bigfoot enthusiasts would be the knobs I am looking directly at as the answer to the question, mostly because they’re such easy and obvious targets. Matthew Whitton and Rick Dye of northern Georgia, please stand up. These two ass hats claimed to have found a Bigfoot corpse in the woods, but when they submitted DNA samples for testing, the results weren’t in their favor. One sample was human and the other was 96 percent opossum, meaning that it’s more likely this was a promotional stunt by the two men to help trump up interest in the Bigfoot merchandise they sell. A photo they allegedly snapped of the Bigfoot corpse looks to be nothing more than “a hairy heap, bearing a close resemblance to a shaggy, full-body gorilla costume, stuffed into a container resembling a refrigerator,” according to one report. Nice try, fellas. I’m sure exactly no one outside of your legion of Bigfoot dorks ever believed you to begin with, but it’s always good to see knobs like you exposed for what they truly are.
- With the New York Yankees moving into a new stadium next season, you had to figure the fans would get dicked over and sure enough, that’s exactly what’s happening. Sure, there will be a shiny, sparkling new ballpark to enjoy, but at what price? As it happens, the price is 240 percent. That’s the increase that one Yankees season ticket holder will see his seats increase next year as the team opens its new stadium. This unidentified individual paid $250 per ticket, per game this season for his ducats and for a similar seat next season, he’ll pay a whopping $850 per seat. The picture becomes even bleaker when you consider that back in 2001, the same seat cost only $45 per game. Nothing like a 1,788 percent increase over the course of eight years for the same damn product, eh? Look, I get that you need to pay for the cost of the new stadium and that the hundreds and hundreds of millions you make from the YES network, your very own cable network, can’t cover it all, but these increases are ridonkulous. There is no way a new stadium justifies a 240 percent increase from one year to the next. Why don’t you try putting a playoff team on the field before you jerk with fans like that? Whoops, is that a sore subject this season, Yankee honks? My bad….
- Welcome to Harrold, Texas, where they pack heat even in the classroom. In this tiny, sleepy town in the north central part of the state, the local school district has voted to allow teachers and staff members to carry concealed firearms because they believe it will deter and protect against school shootings. Score another one for gun-rights honks, who would probably marry their guns if they could. Right, because what’s better than injecting multiple firearms into a school setting? Nothing could go wrong there, eh? Don’t cut in the lunch line kids, the lunch lady might bust out her 9mm on you. Thinking of talking back in class? Think again. Seriously, though, this is a bad idea on so many levels. You’re going to guarantee that these guns will never go off accidentally or that no disgruntled student will ever be able to wrestle it away from a teacher? And if a student does enter the school with a gun, you think a shootout with teachers, principals and office workers is a good thing? Best of success with it, Harrold, Texas residents, but don’t be surprised if you end up regretting this decision…..
- Bad news for you, dorks/wizards. The release of the final Harry Potter movie has been delayed from this fall to next summer, Warner Bros. announced over the weekend. Initially, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince had been scheduled for a Nov. 21 release, but the studio has elected to push that date back to July 17, 2009. That was news to Entertainment Weekly, which led off its August 22-29 fall-preview issue with a six-page spread featuring Potter star Daniel Radcliffe. Ironically, the studio and the magazine are owned by the same parent company but as is often the case in big business, that doesn’t mean communication is good. This is a good news/bad news situation for Potter fans, because while they will have to wait eight months longer for the film, it is the last one so it at least prolongs the illusion that their favorite character and franchise still matter and are relevant to anyone who isn't pale, pasty, basement-dwelling, Dungeons-and-Dragons-playing and friend-less. Eight more months in the sun for you, dork/wizards, although given the fact that most of you haven’t actually had direct sunlight on your pasty white skin in a long time, that might not be a good thing….
- So you might be asking, are there even bigger losers out there than the tools who dress up in Harry Potter costumes and camp out for the new HP books and movies when they’re released. It’s a good question and while it’s tough to answer, I have some solid evidence that the answer may in fact be “yes.” Bigfoot enthusiasts would be the knobs I am looking directly at as the answer to the question, mostly because they’re such easy and obvious targets. Matthew Whitton and Rick Dye of northern Georgia, please stand up. These two ass hats claimed to have found a Bigfoot corpse in the woods, but when they submitted DNA samples for testing, the results weren’t in their favor. One sample was human and the other was 96 percent opossum, meaning that it’s more likely this was a promotional stunt by the two men to help trump up interest in the Bigfoot merchandise they sell. A photo they allegedly snapped of the Bigfoot corpse looks to be nothing more than “a hairy heap, bearing a close resemblance to a shaggy, full-body gorilla costume, stuffed into a container resembling a refrigerator,” according to one report. Nice try, fellas. I’m sure exactly no one outside of your legion of Bigfoot dorks ever believed you to begin with, but it’s always good to see knobs like you exposed for what they truly are.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Rick Rubin is a busy man, the Dark Knight no longer top dog and the Yankees will have free time come October
- Stay out, Mexicans. And if you don’t get the point, allow us to drive it home with another ginormous section of fence along the border you share with the United States. Construction began Friday to pave the way for a new chunk of fence along the U.S.-Mexico border, stretching from an Oceanside state park in San Diego to a canyon long known as Smuggler’s Gulch. The fence will span more than three miles and will be by far the costliest portion of fence anywhere along the border at more than $16 million per mile. Much of that cost will come from the 1.9 million tons of dirt being hauled in to Smuggler’s Gulch to fill in the canyon and provide a foundation for the new fence. Also adding to the cost will be a massive concrete culvert being installed to catch rain water running downhill from Tijuana on the Mexican side of the border. It’s a project 12 years in the making and yet another sign of the W. administration’s dislike of border crashers, a dislike that has reached unhealthy and vindictive levels of late. Honestly, you’re telling me that you couldn’t find a better way to spend $57 million? Heck, that would finance another half day of your abortion of a war in Iraq, W. Perhaps the legal and environmental issues you faced in trying to make this fence happen over the past eight years should have been an indication that this project is a bad idea. But hey, why suddenly become smart with your spending when you’ve done the exact opposite for the past seven and a half years, eh ass hat? How many more days until inauguration day, when we can finally put the tenure of the worst president in world history behind us?
- A double dip of riot/protest goodness for you today, first in Johannesburg, South Africa and then in Peru. In Johannesburg, a meeting of African leaders for a summit held by the Southern African Development Community spurred hundreds of angry protestors to take it to the streets and speak out against the inclusion of Zimbabwean dictator/oppressor/President Bob Mugabe. The weekend summit is focused on economic and development issues in the involved nations, but for the protestors and at least one invited national leader, the biggest issue is the tyrannical reign of Mugabe. The protestors not only met and demonstrated, they also marched to the summit venue to demand that the leaders not recognize Mugabe. Sharing their views is Botswanan President Ian Khama, who declined to attend because he rightly believes that Mugabe’s presidency is illegitimate, won and kept by cheating, killing, oppression and brute force rather than by the will of his people. That’s one protest I can get behind…..well, to be fair I get behind every protest, but I especially like this one. I also enjoyed the protests in Peru, were thousands of people took to the streets to let their government know that the slow pace of national rebuilding following the 8.0 magnitude earthquake that rocked Peru on August 15, 2007 is not acceptable. The memory of 500 of their fellow Peruvians dying and 40,000 homes being destroyed haven’t faded, mostly because a lot of those homes and destroyed buildings remain in ruins on the country’s southern coast. Many people are still living in tents or makeshift wooden huts, making Friday’s anniversary of the quake a day to rally against the slow, uninspired response of the government to the crisis. Props to South Africans and Peruvians both for great acts of social dissidence and of speaking out against the injustices of those in power…….
- Could it be? The dream of every baseball fan outside the Bronx looks like it will finally come true this season: a Yankee-free postseason. For a team that’s spending in excess of $200 million on players salaries this season, the New York Yankees sure aren't getting their money’s worth. They currently sit at 66-58, third in the American League East behind both Tampa Bay (yes, the Tampa Bay Rays) and the Boston Red Sox. As we ring in this day, the Yankees are 9.5 games behind the first-place Rays and five games behind the wild card-leading Red Sox. Their ace of the future, fireballer Joba Chamberlain, is still out with a shoulder injury that has forced him to miss his last several starts. Outfielder Hideki Matsui and catcher Jorge Posada are out for the season, with outfielder Johnny Damon battling back from an arm injury as well. Under-performing centerfielder Melky Cabrera was optioned to Triple-A last week, another indication that the team is desperate and trying anything to create a spark. Fact is, they are far too banged up and old to make their customary late-season surge to snatch a playoff spot at the end of the year. They are indeed the third best team in their own division, a fate that is very un-Yankee-like, thus making it all the more amusing to a nation of baseball fans who are predominately anti-Yankees. Start making your tee times for the first week of October, Yankee players, you’ll need something to fill the time…..
- It took more than a month, but The Dark Knight has finally been dislodged at the top of the box office earnings race. It hasn’t been dethroned by a better movie, just a newer one, namely the Ben Stiller comedy Tropic Thunder. Thunder brought in a modest $26 million in its opening weekend to take the top spot, beating out Dark Knight at $16.8 million. That total was enough to push the newest Batman epic past the original Star Wars movie and into second place on the all-time earnings list with $471.5 million. Unfortunately, that leaves the film well behind the biggest waste of four hours of cinema, Titanic, which grossed $600 million. Warner Bros., the studio for Dark Knight, expects the film to top out at about $530 million, although it will still trail both Star Wars and Titanic in total number of tickets sold because of inflation. Ironically, the third-place film for the weekend was another Star Wars flick, albeit an animated version. Star Wars: The Clone Wars earned just $15.5 million for its opening weekend, meaning that there may not be as many dorks out there as I thought….or their moms just haven’t given them their allowance yet or wasn’t able to haul them and their friends in her minivan to the theater this weekend. Either way, not a stellar opening weekend for George Lucas’ latest effort…….
- Is there anyone that Rick Rubin isn't going to produce an album for? Next on the list for the most popular producer in music right now is legendary, hirsute rockers ZZ Top. The project hasn’t even formally begun yet and already Rubin has offered up a great idea; having ZZ collaborate with garage rockers and Akron, Ohio natives the Black Keys. The Keys released one of this year’s best albums, Attack & Release, and their gritty, blues-infused rock sound will be a nice addition to this new album in any capacity. “This is a new venture between the two of us,” ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons said of the partnership with Rubin. As for teaming up with the Black Keys, Gibbons sounds excited. “I’m a big fan of those guys…..it makes total sense,” he explained. Gibbons first saw the Keys perform at New York’s Irving Plaza back in 2005, before they became such a recognized fixture on the music scene. According to Gibbons ZZ Top have been waiting 20 years to work with Rubin (which I believe because this guy must have an f’ing line around the block of artists wanting him to produce their album), so it’s a dream come true. Stay tuned for the end result of the partnership, which should be an album released late in 2009……
- A double dip of riot/protest goodness for you today, first in Johannesburg, South Africa and then in Peru. In Johannesburg, a meeting of African leaders for a summit held by the Southern African Development Community spurred hundreds of angry protestors to take it to the streets and speak out against the inclusion of Zimbabwean dictator/oppressor/President Bob Mugabe. The weekend summit is focused on economic and development issues in the involved nations, but for the protestors and at least one invited national leader, the biggest issue is the tyrannical reign of Mugabe. The protestors not only met and demonstrated, they also marched to the summit venue to demand that the leaders not recognize Mugabe. Sharing their views is Botswanan President Ian Khama, who declined to attend because he rightly believes that Mugabe’s presidency is illegitimate, won and kept by cheating, killing, oppression and brute force rather than by the will of his people. That’s one protest I can get behind…..well, to be fair I get behind every protest, but I especially like this one. I also enjoyed the protests in Peru, were thousands of people took to the streets to let their government know that the slow pace of national rebuilding following the 8.0 magnitude earthquake that rocked Peru on August 15, 2007 is not acceptable. The memory of 500 of their fellow Peruvians dying and 40,000 homes being destroyed haven’t faded, mostly because a lot of those homes and destroyed buildings remain in ruins on the country’s southern coast. Many people are still living in tents or makeshift wooden huts, making Friday’s anniversary of the quake a day to rally against the slow, uninspired response of the government to the crisis. Props to South Africans and Peruvians both for great acts of social dissidence and of speaking out against the injustices of those in power…….
- Could it be? The dream of every baseball fan outside the Bronx looks like it will finally come true this season: a Yankee-free postseason. For a team that’s spending in excess of $200 million on players salaries this season, the New York Yankees sure aren't getting their money’s worth. They currently sit at 66-58, third in the American League East behind both Tampa Bay (yes, the Tampa Bay Rays) and the Boston Red Sox. As we ring in this day, the Yankees are 9.5 games behind the first-place Rays and five games behind the wild card-leading Red Sox. Their ace of the future, fireballer Joba Chamberlain, is still out with a shoulder injury that has forced him to miss his last several starts. Outfielder Hideki Matsui and catcher Jorge Posada are out for the season, with outfielder Johnny Damon battling back from an arm injury as well. Under-performing centerfielder Melky Cabrera was optioned to Triple-A last week, another indication that the team is desperate and trying anything to create a spark. Fact is, they are far too banged up and old to make their customary late-season surge to snatch a playoff spot at the end of the year. They are indeed the third best team in their own division, a fate that is very un-Yankee-like, thus making it all the more amusing to a nation of baseball fans who are predominately anti-Yankees. Start making your tee times for the first week of October, Yankee players, you’ll need something to fill the time…..
- It took more than a month, but The Dark Knight has finally been dislodged at the top of the box office earnings race. It hasn’t been dethroned by a better movie, just a newer one, namely the Ben Stiller comedy Tropic Thunder. Thunder brought in a modest $26 million in its opening weekend to take the top spot, beating out Dark Knight at $16.8 million. That total was enough to push the newest Batman epic past the original Star Wars movie and into second place on the all-time earnings list with $471.5 million. Unfortunately, that leaves the film well behind the biggest waste of four hours of cinema, Titanic, which grossed $600 million. Warner Bros., the studio for Dark Knight, expects the film to top out at about $530 million, although it will still trail both Star Wars and Titanic in total number of tickets sold because of inflation. Ironically, the third-place film for the weekend was another Star Wars flick, albeit an animated version. Star Wars: The Clone Wars earned just $15.5 million for its opening weekend, meaning that there may not be as many dorks out there as I thought….or their moms just haven’t given them their allowance yet or wasn’t able to haul them and their friends in her minivan to the theater this weekend. Either way, not a stellar opening weekend for George Lucas’ latest effort…….
- Is there anyone that Rick Rubin isn't going to produce an album for? Next on the list for the most popular producer in music right now is legendary, hirsute rockers ZZ Top. The project hasn’t even formally begun yet and already Rubin has offered up a great idea; having ZZ collaborate with garage rockers and Akron, Ohio natives the Black Keys. The Keys released one of this year’s best albums, Attack & Release, and their gritty, blues-infused rock sound will be a nice addition to this new album in any capacity. “This is a new venture between the two of us,” ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons said of the partnership with Rubin. As for teaming up with the Black Keys, Gibbons sounds excited. “I’m a big fan of those guys…..it makes total sense,” he explained. Gibbons first saw the Keys perform at New York’s Irving Plaza back in 2005, before they became such a recognized fixture on the music scene. According to Gibbons ZZ Top have been waiting 20 years to work with Rubin (which I believe because this guy must have an f’ing line around the block of artists wanting him to produce their album), so it’s a dream come true. Stay tuned for the end result of the partnership, which should be an album released late in 2009……
Monday, August 18, 2008
Bad music at the VMAs, crazy coin people and Lil Jon's new direction
- You really have to be trying to rack up 248 felony charges. Even your most prolific, sinister criminals have a hard time breaking the 100-felony barrier. Plus, you need to be a really, truly despicable human being to accumulate that many felony convictions, no doubt about it. Thirty-eight-year-old James McCafferty of Philadelphia, Pa. fills that bill, what with running a body part-harvesting business at the funeral home where he worked. McCafferty pleaded guilty Wednesday to those 248 felonies related to the case in which he was charged with allowing “cutters” to come in and take body parts from corpses for $1,000, all without the knowledge of the families of the deceased. I literally don’t even know how a person has the gall to do something like this. People entrust you with the remains of their deceased loved one, expecting that you will prepare them for burial and give them the honorable, respectful sendoff they deserve. Instead, you figure that because no one is going to look at the bodies that closely once you’re done with them, you can dissect them and sell off the valuable parts for a profit. It might be the most reprehensible crime I can imagine outside of hurting children. However long McCafferty goes away for, it won't be long enough……
- Musicians can go one of two ways when they’ve had early success in their career. Either they stick with the same shtick that made them successful, not tinker with it and look to ride that style as far as it will go, or they can look to grow, evolve an push their barriers. Either way, they’ll receive criticism. Stay in the same mold and people will criticize you for now growing musically. Try something new and you’ll likely be ripped for straying from your sound and changing what was working for you. Lil Jon is taking the latter route, hoping that his synth-heavy hip-hip will have a broader appeal because of the variety of new sound and genres he’s incorporating into his upcoming album. As someone who’s not a fan of his music and gets a little tired of him asking “What?!?” 8,501 times every song, I don’t care if he fails or soars, but if you are a Lil Jon fan, be prepared to hear dance acts, soca musicians, rockers and more on the rapper’s next album. “It’s not just music for the United States: It’s music for the world,” Lil Jon has been quoted as saying. He’s hoping to broaden his appeal and undoubtedly make a lot more money, but it should be interesting to see if the attempt to fuse rap and all of these other genres turns out to be as big of a train wreck as I think it could be…..
- Everyone knows or has a crazy, eccentric grandparent who accumulates ginormous quantities of coins. You know, that grandma who has overflowing jars of pennies and is trucking bags full of penny rolls to the bank to deposit, that’s who I mean. These are the same people who always “have exact change” at the register and hold everyone up in line behind them fishing through a purse full of loose change for the exact combination of pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. Multiply those people by 10,000, mutate them into their most annoying form and double it and you have 70-year-old James Jones of Springdale, Ohio. Jones recently went into his local Chevrolet dealership looking to buy a new Silverado truck. Unfortunately for the dealership, this a-hole doesn’t trust paper money and so he and his wife hauled in 16 f’ing coffee cans full of change. It took several employees an hour and a half to count all of the change, which amounted to $16,000. That was half the price of the truck, with the Joneses writing a check for the other half. Why they couldn’t put that change in the bank and write a check for the whole amount, I don’t know. What I do know is that if I’d been there, I’d have punched Jones in the face. I don’t care if his is a senior citizen, if you’re enough of a knob to bring $16,000 in change to pay for a new vehicle, you deserve to be punched in the face, regardless of your age. Yes, old people can be funny about money, but even if you distrust online banking, don’t like using credit cards and like to be old-fashioned, paper money has been around for a couple hundred years, I think it’s safe to use. Enjoy your new truck, Mr. Jones, and be glad I wasn’t around when you can ambling in with your coffee cans of change…..
- This is undoubtedly one of the more bizarre and unexpected doping stories of this or any other Olympics. For the second time during these Games, a North Korean pistol shooter has been booted from the Olympics after failing a doping test at the Asian championships held in December in Kuwait. Pistol shooter Kim Hyon-Ung was qualified for the Olympics but failed to make it to North Korea's final list of shooters for the Beijing Games. “Kim Hyon-Ung was barred from participating in the Games after it became known belatedly that he failed a doping test carried out during the Asian championships,” one official said. The report comes just one day after North Korea's Kim Jong-Su, who won silver and bronze medals in Olympic shooting, failed a doping test. I’m not even sure where to begin here, because shooting is one of the last places you’d expect doping. After all, the more common steroids and performance-enhancing drugs wouldn’t factor in in the sport because you don’t need muscle tone, strength or speed. However, the one thing you need more of than any other physical ability when it comes to shooting is a steady hand. That appears to have been the motivation Kim Jong-Su, who won silver in the men's 50m pistol and bronze in the 10m pistol, because his positive test was for banned beta-blocker drugs which prevent trembling. Maybe I’m just being overly positive here, but I take a lot from the fact that while North Korean shooters might be doping up, at least they’re not packing nukes when they come to the Olympics…..
- Wanna know the best thing about the MTV Video Music Awards? You don’t have to have actual musical talent or have produced a single good, listenable song in your career to win or be a performer. Witness the train wreck known as Britney Spears, whose flabby, disjointed, lip-synced performance at last year’s show won't be enough to keep her from being featured prominently in this year’s show. Worse yet, the ass hats who took part in the nomination process have tabbed her as one of the finalists for video of the year, best pop video and best female video. The video of the year category is a total joke, what with musical luminaries such as the Jonas Brothers, Chris Brown and the Pussycat Skanks being among the finalists. Also, MTV hasn’t ruled out allowing Spears to perform one of her crappy pop songs, songs being used in the most liberal sense of the word. Here’s the thing: unless she’s managed to find actual vocal talent in the past year, Spears still can’t sing worth a crap. The only reason she was ever popular was because at one point, she actually looked hot. Now that her appearance has gone in a downward arc for a variety of reasons (nonstop clubbing, smoking, boozing and having two kids will do that), she’s nothing but a novelty act, a circus sideshow that shouldn’t be nominated for a single award anywhere, at any time. Yet more proof that in the music world, MTV is a force working against good music and for the gradual homogenization and dilution of good songs and albums……
- Musicians can go one of two ways when they’ve had early success in their career. Either they stick with the same shtick that made them successful, not tinker with it and look to ride that style as far as it will go, or they can look to grow, evolve an push their barriers. Either way, they’ll receive criticism. Stay in the same mold and people will criticize you for now growing musically. Try something new and you’ll likely be ripped for straying from your sound and changing what was working for you. Lil Jon is taking the latter route, hoping that his synth-heavy hip-hip will have a broader appeal because of the variety of new sound and genres he’s incorporating into his upcoming album. As someone who’s not a fan of his music and gets a little tired of him asking “What?!?” 8,501 times every song, I don’t care if he fails or soars, but if you are a Lil Jon fan, be prepared to hear dance acts, soca musicians, rockers and more on the rapper’s next album. “It’s not just music for the United States: It’s music for the world,” Lil Jon has been quoted as saying. He’s hoping to broaden his appeal and undoubtedly make a lot more money, but it should be interesting to see if the attempt to fuse rap and all of these other genres turns out to be as big of a train wreck as I think it could be…..
- Everyone knows or has a crazy, eccentric grandparent who accumulates ginormous quantities of coins. You know, that grandma who has overflowing jars of pennies and is trucking bags full of penny rolls to the bank to deposit, that’s who I mean. These are the same people who always “have exact change” at the register and hold everyone up in line behind them fishing through a purse full of loose change for the exact combination of pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. Multiply those people by 10,000, mutate them into their most annoying form and double it and you have 70-year-old James Jones of Springdale, Ohio. Jones recently went into his local Chevrolet dealership looking to buy a new Silverado truck. Unfortunately for the dealership, this a-hole doesn’t trust paper money and so he and his wife hauled in 16 f’ing coffee cans full of change. It took several employees an hour and a half to count all of the change, which amounted to $16,000. That was half the price of the truck, with the Joneses writing a check for the other half. Why they couldn’t put that change in the bank and write a check for the whole amount, I don’t know. What I do know is that if I’d been there, I’d have punched Jones in the face. I don’t care if his is a senior citizen, if you’re enough of a knob to bring $16,000 in change to pay for a new vehicle, you deserve to be punched in the face, regardless of your age. Yes, old people can be funny about money, but even if you distrust online banking, don’t like using credit cards and like to be old-fashioned, paper money has been around for a couple hundred years, I think it’s safe to use. Enjoy your new truck, Mr. Jones, and be glad I wasn’t around when you can ambling in with your coffee cans of change…..
- This is undoubtedly one of the more bizarre and unexpected doping stories of this or any other Olympics. For the second time during these Games, a North Korean pistol shooter has been booted from the Olympics after failing a doping test at the Asian championships held in December in Kuwait. Pistol shooter Kim Hyon-Ung was qualified for the Olympics but failed to make it to North Korea's final list of shooters for the Beijing Games. “Kim Hyon-Ung was barred from participating in the Games after it became known belatedly that he failed a doping test carried out during the Asian championships,” one official said. The report comes just one day after North Korea's Kim Jong-Su, who won silver and bronze medals in Olympic shooting, failed a doping test. I’m not even sure where to begin here, because shooting is one of the last places you’d expect doping. After all, the more common steroids and performance-enhancing drugs wouldn’t factor in in the sport because you don’t need muscle tone, strength or speed. However, the one thing you need more of than any other physical ability when it comes to shooting is a steady hand. That appears to have been the motivation Kim Jong-Su, who won silver in the men's 50m pistol and bronze in the 10m pistol, because his positive test was for banned beta-blocker drugs which prevent trembling. Maybe I’m just being overly positive here, but I take a lot from the fact that while North Korean shooters might be doping up, at least they’re not packing nukes when they come to the Olympics…..
- Wanna know the best thing about the MTV Video Music Awards? You don’t have to have actual musical talent or have produced a single good, listenable song in your career to win or be a performer. Witness the train wreck known as Britney Spears, whose flabby, disjointed, lip-synced performance at last year’s show won't be enough to keep her from being featured prominently in this year’s show. Worse yet, the ass hats who took part in the nomination process have tabbed her as one of the finalists for video of the year, best pop video and best female video. The video of the year category is a total joke, what with musical luminaries such as the Jonas Brothers, Chris Brown and the Pussycat Skanks being among the finalists. Also, MTV hasn’t ruled out allowing Spears to perform one of her crappy pop songs, songs being used in the most liberal sense of the word. Here’s the thing: unless she’s managed to find actual vocal talent in the past year, Spears still can’t sing worth a crap. The only reason she was ever popular was because at one point, she actually looked hot. Now that her appearance has gone in a downward arc for a variety of reasons (nonstop clubbing, smoking, boozing and having two kids will do that), she’s nothing but a novelty act, a circus sideshow that shouldn’t be nominated for a single award anywhere, at any time. Yet more proof that in the music world, MTV is a force working against good music and for the gradual homogenization and dilution of good songs and albums……
Sunday, August 17, 2008
A hoax of a museum expands, jock itch threatens a college football dynasty and a unique book club
- Been without that Netflix-ed No Country for Old Men DVD you ordered, movie fans? Well, you can either get into the habit of borrowing them and burning illegal copies find another source for your movie fix or prepare to wait a little longer. Seems that the folks at Netflix, the world’s favorite movie subscription service, are having technical difficulties which have all but killed their ability to send out DVDs for the past several days. According to an official statement from the company, a technical error has impacted not only its Los Gatos, California headquarters, but all 55 of its distribution centers. The result has been Netflix’s biggest disruption of distribution in the company’s nine years in existence. At present, approximately one-third of the company’s 8.4 million customers are waiting on DVDs that have been delayed in leaving the shipping center. The glitch has had no effect on the Netflix website, where users can stream videos directly to their computers. Previously, the biggest snafu with Netflix service had come during an 18-hour website crash in July 2007. But hey, I’m sure everyone will get a refund or some sort of great compensation for their inconvenience, because major corporations always make sure to give proper recompense to their customers when a problem like this occ-…..dammit. I almost made it through that last sentence with a straight face, but I just couldn’t do it. Sorry Netflix users, but something tells me you’re going to end up getting dicked over…..
- How many times can Major League Baseball dangle the instant replay carrot out in front of us and yank it away? Throughout the season, MLB has appeared to waffle on this issue of using instant replay during games, waffle on a start date for the practice once they’d decided to use it and waffle on everything involved in the whole saga. Now, commissioner Bud Selig says his “confidence is growing” in regards to the use of replay during games, but that when it is implemented, it will be “very limited.” In other words, replay will be used only to resolve disputed home run calls, which is a great idea. There have been far too many blown home run calls by umpires of late, whether it was the ball hitting a spot above and beyond the outfield wall, bouncing back and not being called a home run or being called incorrectly foul when a ball was fair. The replay system itself is moronically designed, with all games being watched on live feed from a centralized point at the MLB offices in New York City. Each play will be reviewed but the first and last word on all uses of replay will be with the umpires. It’s not an ideal setup because 1) the replay system should be self-contained at each stadium to minimize possible technical glitches, and 2) the egos of umpires could factor in, now wanting to be second-guessed. However, any means that can be used to get calls right without a major delay in games is good. Expanding replay to close calls at bases or balls and strikes, check swings, etc. would do just that, delay the game too much. Limit it to home runs and it will be a marked improvement in games immediately….
- We’ve finally found them. By “them,” I mean the mythical guys who actually do read Playboy for the articles. Meet the BWOG club at Columbia University, a group of Ivy Leaguers who have started their very own Playboy Book Club. The book club was started to discuss Denis Johnson’s serial novel Nobody Move, currently running in Playboy in serialized form. Nobody Move will be run in four installments starting last month and ending in October. The novel’s author actually holds a master’s degree from University of Iowa, has won a National Book Award and was even a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Yet here he is, delving into the literary endeavor of a novel published serially in Playboy? On its site, the group extends the following invitation:
The Bwog Book Club invites you to join our discussion of the first segment of Denis Johnson's serial noir, Nobody Move. If you missed July's issue of Playboy, feel free to read the plot summary provided here and join us next time for a discussion of second segment published in this month's magazine. The site also provides questions that the group is using to dissect the book, which include:
1. For starters, Nobody Move is, of course, published as a serial in a magazine. How much of Johnson's writing and narrative structure do you think is determined by this?
2. The plot and style fits a certain predictable noir prototype, but much of the story does not. How does Johnson deviate from the noir genre? What surprises you?
Personally, I like this. I like it a lot, and that’s from someone who doesn’t read, subscribe to or in any way patronize anything related to Playboy. If there is some way to infuse a bit of culture and intellectual growth into the degenerates who will pay several dollars a month just to have pictures of naked women to look at, sandwiched in between articles about sex and other assorted guy-centric topics, great. Who’s not better off if we can see some growth and cultural sophistication out of the lowly porn addicts of the world? One small step at a time, I say…..
- Some of the top teams in college football have been dealing with mini-epidemics threatening their rosters as the start of the season nears. The Florida Gators have had a whopping five players blow out their ACLs, devastating their roster as they look to contend for a national championship. Their SEC counterparts, the Georgia Bulldogs, have been plagued by an epidemic of players getting arrested because they insist on acting like morons. But the most curious of all might be at USC, where the Trojans are under assault by that old locker room nemesis that we all hate - jock itch. Yes, a jock itch epidemic has been sweeping through the USC team during training camp. Coaches are being politically correct and referring to it as “a skin irritation.” Coach Pete Carroll said he has never seen anything like the outbreak that caused several key players to miss practice Wednesday. The malady has affected about 25 percent of the team has been, kicker David Buehler estimates. A chief culprit seems to be The condition seems to new compression shorts, that the Trojans wear under their football pants. Among the inflicted are tailback Joe McKnight and receiver Travon Patterson who both were suffering enough to spend Wednesday's practice on the sideline. Patterson summed it up well, saying, “It burns.” Yeah, and that’s all the information I need, Travon. No further description needed, my man. At least two Trojans are able to find some humor in the situation, predictably two who were not hit by the jock-itch bug. “We've had to adjust to some new equipment that we're wearing that didn't work out right," Peter Carroll said. "It's funny how that happened." Talking about his afflicted teammates, running back Stafon Johnson seemed rather amused by their plight. “Sometimes they can't walk,” Johnson chuckled. “I don't know what it is, but I'm staying away from it.” Smart move, Stafon, I’d ditch the compression shorts and stock up on Gold Bond medicated powder, just to be safe….
- Not satisfied with just one museum where you can see Jimi Hendrix’s old lunch box or Paul McCartney’s amp from when he was a kid? Today is a good day for you, my friend, because the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced that it will be building a downtown Manhattan annex to supplement the original museum, located on the shores of Lake Erie in Cleveland, Ohio. Mayor and noted anti-smoking activist Michael Bloomberg announced this week that the annex will be going up as one of the first outposts designed to take the museum’s extensive memorabilia collection to a wider, more international audience. Joining the mayor at the announcement ceremony were Billy Joel and legendary record producer Clive Davis. The 25,000 annex will host items such as Bruce Springsteen’s 1957 Chevy. There will also be an exhibit titled New York Rocks, which will highlight NYC’s connections to rock, which are numerous and longstanding, including legendary Talking Heads front man David Byrne. It would have been a nice complement to legendary Manhattan rock club CBGB’s….if CBGB’s hadn’t been sadly forced to close at the end of 2006 in a rent dispute with the Bowery Residents Commission. The club played host to the launch of the careers of amazing artists such as the Ramones, Talking Heads, Television, Blondie, Sonic Youth and more, but it’s gone and now an annex of a museum lame enough to honor and induct hack pop stars like Madonna and Cher is all that’s left. Another annex is planned for America’s tackiest city, Las Vegas, so that should be a fitting location as well…..
- How many times can Major League Baseball dangle the instant replay carrot out in front of us and yank it away? Throughout the season, MLB has appeared to waffle on this issue of using instant replay during games, waffle on a start date for the practice once they’d decided to use it and waffle on everything involved in the whole saga. Now, commissioner Bud Selig says his “confidence is growing” in regards to the use of replay during games, but that when it is implemented, it will be “very limited.” In other words, replay will be used only to resolve disputed home run calls, which is a great idea. There have been far too many blown home run calls by umpires of late, whether it was the ball hitting a spot above and beyond the outfield wall, bouncing back and not being called a home run or being called incorrectly foul when a ball was fair. The replay system itself is moronically designed, with all games being watched on live feed from a centralized point at the MLB offices in New York City. Each play will be reviewed but the first and last word on all uses of replay will be with the umpires. It’s not an ideal setup because 1) the replay system should be self-contained at each stadium to minimize possible technical glitches, and 2) the egos of umpires could factor in, now wanting to be second-guessed. However, any means that can be used to get calls right without a major delay in games is good. Expanding replay to close calls at bases or balls and strikes, check swings, etc. would do just that, delay the game too much. Limit it to home runs and it will be a marked improvement in games immediately….
- We’ve finally found them. By “them,” I mean the mythical guys who actually do read Playboy for the articles. Meet the BWOG club at Columbia University, a group of Ivy Leaguers who have started their very own Playboy Book Club. The book club was started to discuss Denis Johnson’s serial novel Nobody Move, currently running in Playboy in serialized form. Nobody Move will be run in four installments starting last month and ending in October. The novel’s author actually holds a master’s degree from University of Iowa, has won a National Book Award and was even a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Yet here he is, delving into the literary endeavor of a novel published serially in Playboy? On its site, the group extends the following invitation:
The Bwog Book Club invites you to join our discussion of the first segment of Denis Johnson's serial noir, Nobody Move. If you missed July's issue of Playboy, feel free to read the plot summary provided here and join us next time for a discussion of second segment published in this month's magazine. The site also provides questions that the group is using to dissect the book, which include:
1. For starters, Nobody Move is, of course, published as a serial in a magazine. How much of Johnson's writing and narrative structure do you think is determined by this?
2. The plot and style fits a certain predictable noir prototype, but much of the story does not. How does Johnson deviate from the noir genre? What surprises you?
Personally, I like this. I like it a lot, and that’s from someone who doesn’t read, subscribe to or in any way patronize anything related to Playboy. If there is some way to infuse a bit of culture and intellectual growth into the degenerates who will pay several dollars a month just to have pictures of naked women to look at, sandwiched in between articles about sex and other assorted guy-centric topics, great. Who’s not better off if we can see some growth and cultural sophistication out of the lowly porn addicts of the world? One small step at a time, I say…..
- Some of the top teams in college football have been dealing with mini-epidemics threatening their rosters as the start of the season nears. The Florida Gators have had a whopping five players blow out their ACLs, devastating their roster as they look to contend for a national championship. Their SEC counterparts, the Georgia Bulldogs, have been plagued by an epidemic of players getting arrested because they insist on acting like morons. But the most curious of all might be at USC, where the Trojans are under assault by that old locker room nemesis that we all hate - jock itch. Yes, a jock itch epidemic has been sweeping through the USC team during training camp. Coaches are being politically correct and referring to it as “a skin irritation.” Coach Pete Carroll said he has never seen anything like the outbreak that caused several key players to miss practice Wednesday. The malady has affected about 25 percent of the team has been, kicker David Buehler estimates. A chief culprit seems to be The condition seems to new compression shorts, that the Trojans wear under their football pants. Among the inflicted are tailback Joe McKnight and receiver Travon Patterson who both were suffering enough to spend Wednesday's practice on the sideline. Patterson summed it up well, saying, “It burns.” Yeah, and that’s all the information I need, Travon. No further description needed, my man. At least two Trojans are able to find some humor in the situation, predictably two who were not hit by the jock-itch bug. “We've had to adjust to some new equipment that we're wearing that didn't work out right," Peter Carroll said. "It's funny how that happened." Talking about his afflicted teammates, running back Stafon Johnson seemed rather amused by their plight. “Sometimes they can't walk,” Johnson chuckled. “I don't know what it is, but I'm staying away from it.” Smart move, Stafon, I’d ditch the compression shorts and stock up on Gold Bond medicated powder, just to be safe….
- Not satisfied with just one museum where you can see Jimi Hendrix’s old lunch box or Paul McCartney’s amp from when he was a kid? Today is a good day for you, my friend, because the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced that it will be building a downtown Manhattan annex to supplement the original museum, located on the shores of Lake Erie in Cleveland, Ohio. Mayor and noted anti-smoking activist Michael Bloomberg announced this week that the annex will be going up as one of the first outposts designed to take the museum’s extensive memorabilia collection to a wider, more international audience. Joining the mayor at the announcement ceremony were Billy Joel and legendary record producer Clive Davis. The 25,000 annex will host items such as Bruce Springsteen’s 1957 Chevy. There will also be an exhibit titled New York Rocks, which will highlight NYC’s connections to rock, which are numerous and longstanding, including legendary Talking Heads front man David Byrne. It would have been a nice complement to legendary Manhattan rock club CBGB’s….if CBGB’s hadn’t been sadly forced to close at the end of 2006 in a rent dispute with the Bowery Residents Commission. The club played host to the launch of the careers of amazing artists such as the Ramones, Talking Heads, Television, Blondie, Sonic Youth and more, but it’s gone and now an annex of a museum lame enough to honor and induct hack pop stars like Madonna and Cher is all that’s left. Another annex is planned for America’s tackiest city, Las Vegas, so that should be a fitting location as well…..
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Spanish idiots, brain-dead cops and Olympic athletes like to hit it....a lot
- Up to now, I’ve been mostly ripping China when it comes to criticizing the Summer Olympics. Actually, that’s not true. I’ve only been ripping China, but with good reason. Today, that trend ends because someone else involved with the Games is deserving of ridicule. The Spanish Olympic men’s basketball team may be a gold medal contender, but when it comes to racial sensitivity and basic common sense, the Spaniards aren't quite so skilled. Before leaving for Beijing, all 15 players posed for a picture in which they used their fingers to apparently make their eyes look more Chinese by making them more narrow. The photo has been running as a full-page newspaper spread in Spain since Friday and it shows the gesture on a basketball court adorned with a Chinese dragon. The photo is part of a marketing campaign for team sponsor Seur and is being used only in Spain, but that hasn’t stopped the world from taking notice. International media ripped the photo, with London's Daily Telegraph saying Spain's “poor reputation for insensitivity toward racial issues has been further harmed.” Predictably, members of the team are going with the ever-popular “misunderstood” defense for their idiotic actions. “It was something like supposed to be funny or something but never offensive in any way,” Spain's Pau Gasol, center for the Los Angeles Lakers, said. “I'm sorry if anybody thought or took it the wrong way and thought that it was offensive.” Backing him up was point guard Jose Manuel Calderon, who wrote on his ElMundo.es blog, “"We felt it was something appropriate, and that it would be interpreted as an affectionate gesture. Without a doubt, some ... press didn't see it that way.” Yeah, people are funny that way. When you belittle another culture and their physical appearance by distorting your face in a mocking way, they get pissed. And no, you saying that you were only responding to a request from the photographer doesn’t cut it. The most hilarious comment of all came from Juan Antonio Villanueva, the communications director for Madrid's 2016 Olympic bid. “We're surprised by the remarks of racism,” he said. “Spain is not a racist country -- quite the opposite.” You’re surprised? If you’re truly surprised, then maybe racism isn't your biggest problem; being morons is. Spanish sports have a track record of problems over racist attitudes, as
Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton was subjected to abuse at a Barcelona circuit in February, and former Spain coach Luis Aragones used a racist remark about France striker Thierry Henry to motivate one of his players. Class it up, Spain. You’re better than this….or at least you need to be.
- Raymond Daniel Thurmond just doesn’t sound like my kind of dad. Thurmond, 36, is accused of locking his wife and four sons inside their Lavonia, Ga. mobile home and forcing them to live there as virtual prisoners for three years. According to police in Lavonia, Thurmond kept his wife and children confined inside a mobile home where conditions were so dirty and unsanitary that officer Missy Collins literally ran from the trailer and vomited when she tried to enter. The cops were tipped off about the situation when Thurmond’s wife and kids escaped and took refuge at a local shelter. There, they shared their harrowing tale with a staff member who then called the police. The boys, ages 14, 13, 12 and 9, were also reportedly abused by their father. Additionally, the three youngest boys have never been allowed to attend school and the 14-year-old only went until he reached second grade. As for the trailer, Collins put it thusly: “You couldn’t breathe. I’ve never in my life smelled anything like that.” Usually that sentence is uttered when getting a whiff of the pungent odor coming from a pile of the Black Eyed Peas’ latest album, but this trailer might actually have stunk worse. The only time Thurmond allowed his prisoners, er, family out of the trailer was to visit his wife’s family in North Carolina. Other than that, they spent three freaking years inside that hell hole. For his actions, Thurmond has been charged with one count of rape, four counts of cruelty to children, five counts of false imprisonment and he has been inexplicably disqualified from the Georgia state Father of the Year contest. Now I’m not a father, but I feel pretty confident in saying that the parenting techniques displayed by Mr. Thurmond are not something you dads out there want to emulate, just a thought…..
- To be honest, I just didn’t think a movie like Tropic Thunder would be a major point of discussion at any time, ever. It’s a tongue-in-cheek, sarcastic, mocking comedy looking to belittle the distorted view that Hollywood sees the world. As I’m sure you know by now, it stars Ben Stiller as an actor in a Rambo-like, Vietnam-era action movie who is unknowingly taken hostage during filming by a drug lord and his lackeys when the film’s director attempts to save the project by turning it into a documentary-style effort. With a cast of Jack Black, Tom Cruise, Robert Downey Jr., Stiller, etc., Thunder is obviously going for a big-name bump. What it is getting is a lot of flack for advocates for mentally handicapped people, who take exception to the use of the word “retard” in the film. That term is in high rotation, especially in Simple Jack, a film within the film in which Stiller’s character Tugg Speedman plays a handicapped character and plays up every imaginable stereotype of the mentally handicapped in an attempt to win awards for the role. That isn't the only flack Tropic Thunder is receiving; there is also some heat about Downey’s character, who changes his skin color in order to play a black soldier in the fictional commando movie. The irony is that the movie itself is mediocre despite a potentially clever premise of mocking Hollywood’s view on the world. It’s funny at times and the dialogue has a few fleeting moments of quality, but for the most part you could do a lot better seeing The Dark Knight for a third or fourth time. But because of controversies over race and the perceived sleights against the mentally handicapped, it’s receiving a lot more attention than it actually deserves.
- Higher, farther, faster and hornier. Bet you didn’t know that was the Olympic motto, but based on the statistics coming out of Beijing, it should be. In preparation for the Games, the Chinese organizers prepared for the 10,000 athletes who would be descending on the athletes village. They stocked up on food, personal care items….and condoms. Lots of condoms. With 10,000 athletes scheduled to be in attendance, the Chinese Olympic organizers stocked a whopping 100,000 condoms for them. For the math-challenged out there, that’s 10 condoms per athlete. When you figure that athletes are in Beijing for two weeks or so, basically there are enough condoms for them to get down every night. On top of that, half of the athletes are female, so unless they’re going outside the Olympic village to sex it up with non-athletes, they don’t need condoms. Inside the village, their male partners would be able to pick one up for them. Maybe it’s just me, but the mental picture I have of athletes at the Olympics is of them either competing, practicing, watching other sports or sightseeing. Maybe they have a team meeting or two mixed in, but other than that, I figured their days were pretty filled. But apparently I’m wrong, because the Chinese didn’t just pick the number 100,000 out of thin air. They bought that many condoms because at the last two Summer Olympics, the condoms ran out before the end of the Games. By having 100,000 on hand, the Chinese are looking to avoid that problem. Their reasoning for it might be a little off, but that’s neither here nor there. “There are many young, strong single people in the athlete village and some will fall in love or other things,” the Chinese said in an official statement. Love? Is that what you call hitting it with some random athlete from another country you just met and will never see again after the next two weeks? Either it’s love or it’s just sex-craving athletes who will get after it with the nearest available warm body. Who knew that the drive these athletes have on the field, track or in the water paled in comparison to their sex drive? Steroids may not be the biggest thing that needs tested for at these games, sounds like VD might be a bigger issue…..
- West Palm Beach, Fla. might be a wealthy, upscale oceanside community, but that doesn’t mean West Palm Beach’s finest are above that most biting criticism of all law enforcement officials, namely that they abuse their power and assault those they are apprehending. One officer has resigned and two others have been fired after a patrol car dashboard camera caught them punching and kicking a handcuffed suspect. Pablo Gilberto Valenzuela suffered a broken jaw and bruised eyes when the trio over abusive, Neanderthal, brain-dead officers proceeded to pummel him following his arrest on May 26. And before you law enforcement apologists out there fire back with comments about how we don’t know what kind of crap cops put up with from suspects and criminals, save it. I don’t care what a guy says or does to you before or during an arrest, once you put the cuffs on him you cannot get physical with him or her. The only way you put your hands on a suspect is if you’re moving them from one location to another or if they resist and you have to forcibly hold them down. Punching and kicking a suspect in handcuffs doesn’t fall under either of those categories. It’s also comforting to know that there are real Mensas out there who are dumb enough to pummel someone when there is a camera on the dashboard of their patrol car, recording their every move so that in the event some rogue, a-hole cop crosses the line, its caught on film. Great work from all three of these officers, your community will be better off with someone else serving and protecting…..
Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton was subjected to abuse at a Barcelona circuit in February, and former Spain coach Luis Aragones used a racist remark about France striker Thierry Henry to motivate one of his players. Class it up, Spain. You’re better than this….or at least you need to be.
- Raymond Daniel Thurmond just doesn’t sound like my kind of dad. Thurmond, 36, is accused of locking his wife and four sons inside their Lavonia, Ga. mobile home and forcing them to live there as virtual prisoners for three years. According to police in Lavonia, Thurmond kept his wife and children confined inside a mobile home where conditions were so dirty and unsanitary that officer Missy Collins literally ran from the trailer and vomited when she tried to enter. The cops were tipped off about the situation when Thurmond’s wife and kids escaped and took refuge at a local shelter. There, they shared their harrowing tale with a staff member who then called the police. The boys, ages 14, 13, 12 and 9, were also reportedly abused by their father. Additionally, the three youngest boys have never been allowed to attend school and the 14-year-old only went until he reached second grade. As for the trailer, Collins put it thusly: “You couldn’t breathe. I’ve never in my life smelled anything like that.” Usually that sentence is uttered when getting a whiff of the pungent odor coming from a pile of the Black Eyed Peas’ latest album, but this trailer might actually have stunk worse. The only time Thurmond allowed his prisoners, er, family out of the trailer was to visit his wife’s family in North Carolina. Other than that, they spent three freaking years inside that hell hole. For his actions, Thurmond has been charged with one count of rape, four counts of cruelty to children, five counts of false imprisonment and he has been inexplicably disqualified from the Georgia state Father of the Year contest. Now I’m not a father, but I feel pretty confident in saying that the parenting techniques displayed by Mr. Thurmond are not something you dads out there want to emulate, just a thought…..
- To be honest, I just didn’t think a movie like Tropic Thunder would be a major point of discussion at any time, ever. It’s a tongue-in-cheek, sarcastic, mocking comedy looking to belittle the distorted view that Hollywood sees the world. As I’m sure you know by now, it stars Ben Stiller as an actor in a Rambo-like, Vietnam-era action movie who is unknowingly taken hostage during filming by a drug lord and his lackeys when the film’s director attempts to save the project by turning it into a documentary-style effort. With a cast of Jack Black, Tom Cruise, Robert Downey Jr., Stiller, etc., Thunder is obviously going for a big-name bump. What it is getting is a lot of flack for advocates for mentally handicapped people, who take exception to the use of the word “retard” in the film. That term is in high rotation, especially in Simple Jack, a film within the film in which Stiller’s character Tugg Speedman plays a handicapped character and plays up every imaginable stereotype of the mentally handicapped in an attempt to win awards for the role. That isn't the only flack Tropic Thunder is receiving; there is also some heat about Downey’s character, who changes his skin color in order to play a black soldier in the fictional commando movie. The irony is that the movie itself is mediocre despite a potentially clever premise of mocking Hollywood’s view on the world. It’s funny at times and the dialogue has a few fleeting moments of quality, but for the most part you could do a lot better seeing The Dark Knight for a third or fourth time. But because of controversies over race and the perceived sleights against the mentally handicapped, it’s receiving a lot more attention than it actually deserves.
- Higher, farther, faster and hornier. Bet you didn’t know that was the Olympic motto, but based on the statistics coming out of Beijing, it should be. In preparation for the Games, the Chinese organizers prepared for the 10,000 athletes who would be descending on the athletes village. They stocked up on food, personal care items….and condoms. Lots of condoms. With 10,000 athletes scheduled to be in attendance, the Chinese Olympic organizers stocked a whopping 100,000 condoms for them. For the math-challenged out there, that’s 10 condoms per athlete. When you figure that athletes are in Beijing for two weeks or so, basically there are enough condoms for them to get down every night. On top of that, half of the athletes are female, so unless they’re going outside the Olympic village to sex it up with non-athletes, they don’t need condoms. Inside the village, their male partners would be able to pick one up for them. Maybe it’s just me, but the mental picture I have of athletes at the Olympics is of them either competing, practicing, watching other sports or sightseeing. Maybe they have a team meeting or two mixed in, but other than that, I figured their days were pretty filled. But apparently I’m wrong, because the Chinese didn’t just pick the number 100,000 out of thin air. They bought that many condoms because at the last two Summer Olympics, the condoms ran out before the end of the Games. By having 100,000 on hand, the Chinese are looking to avoid that problem. Their reasoning for it might be a little off, but that’s neither here nor there. “There are many young, strong single people in the athlete village and some will fall in love or other things,” the Chinese said in an official statement. Love? Is that what you call hitting it with some random athlete from another country you just met and will never see again after the next two weeks? Either it’s love or it’s just sex-craving athletes who will get after it with the nearest available warm body. Who knew that the drive these athletes have on the field, track or in the water paled in comparison to their sex drive? Steroids may not be the biggest thing that needs tested for at these games, sounds like VD might be a bigger issue…..
- West Palm Beach, Fla. might be a wealthy, upscale oceanside community, but that doesn’t mean West Palm Beach’s finest are above that most biting criticism of all law enforcement officials, namely that they abuse their power and assault those they are apprehending. One officer has resigned and two others have been fired after a patrol car dashboard camera caught them punching and kicking a handcuffed suspect. Pablo Gilberto Valenzuela suffered a broken jaw and bruised eyes when the trio over abusive, Neanderthal, brain-dead officers proceeded to pummel him following his arrest on May 26. And before you law enforcement apologists out there fire back with comments about how we don’t know what kind of crap cops put up with from suspects and criminals, save it. I don’t care what a guy says or does to you before or during an arrest, once you put the cuffs on him you cannot get physical with him or her. The only way you put your hands on a suspect is if you’re moving them from one location to another or if they resist and you have to forcibly hold them down. Punching and kicking a suspect in handcuffs doesn’t fall under either of those categories. It’s also comforting to know that there are real Mensas out there who are dumb enough to pummel someone when there is a camera on the dashboard of their patrol car, recording their every move so that in the event some rogue, a-hole cop crosses the line, its caught on film. Great work from all three of these officers, your community will be better off with someone else serving and protecting…..
Friday, August 15, 2008
Suing people for bad music, a scam for free porn and Madden '09 released on the masses
- Good call Tuesday by the New York State Division of Parole, denying parole for the fifth time for Mark David Chapman. Chapman is of course that whack job who gunned down John Lennon on Dec. 8, 1980, ending an amazing, world-changing life far too soon. Lennon may have offended people with his willingness to speak out and speak up against things he perceived as injustices (war, specifically) and he and his fellow Beatles may have used a lot of drugs in their careers, but that doesn’t change the fact that Lennon wrote some of the greatest songs of all-time. His lyrics have impacted generations of people and been a force for a lot of good in this world. That Chapman was rejected for parole for a fifth time was absolutely the right choice. In every even-numbered year since 2000, he’s been turned down “due to concerns for public safety and welfare.” What, gunning down a total stranger on the street outside of his New York City apartment makes you a danger to society? No way. Chapman is serving a sentence of 20 years to life in prison, spending most of his days working outside his cell on housekeeping and in the prison library. With any justice at all, that’s where he’ll spend every day of the rest of his life…..
- Hypocrisy runs deep in China, even in the “pageantry and prestige” of the Summer Olympics. Ironically, it’s a superficial issue that is highlighting the depth of that hypocrisy, showing that not only do the Chinese trample human rights in their own and neighboring countries, they also are as vapid as despicable as anyone in any country, anywhere. The controversy comes after it was revealed that Lin Miaoke, the cute little 9-year-old girl who sang “Ode to the Motherland” as the Chinese flag was paraded around Beijing National Stadium during the opening ceremonies, wasn’t actually singing at all. Lin was lip-syncing to the voice of 7-year-old Yang Peiyi, who was offstage, singing live. Why not just let Peiyi be the one on stage singing if her voice is so great? Because she’s not cute enough, that’s why. “The reason was for the national interest,” explained Chen Qigang, the music director for the ceremony. “The child on stage should be flawless in image. We had to do it. We’d been through several inspections. When we rehearsed the spot, there were several spectators, especially leaders from the Politburo, who gave the opinion that it must change.” Right, because the message you want to send is that only if you’re physically attractive can you be on stage singing. Nothing like telling a 7-year-old that she isn't pretty enough and needs to sing behind the curtain while a prettier girl pretends to be the one singing. That won't stick with the kid at all and devastate her self-confidence. Wanna know a little secret, China? It looks worse for your national interest to have everyone see you yank a 7-year-old from the stage because she’s too ugly than it would have to put her out there to sing regardless of her appearance. People are funny that way, but they’re not going to be too concerned with the appearance of a 7-year-old singing in front of billions of people worldwide. They tend to cut kids some slack and not think less of you because you put her out there. But for a nation that has trampled all over everything in its path with calloused disregard for human rights and dignity in its quest to put on an Olympic experience that will show everyone how great you are, this isn't a surprise at all…..we probably should have expected it, actually.
- Despite an anachronistic image on the cover, Madden ’09 seems to be a big hit with gamers worldwide. The most popular football-themed video game around went on sale just after midnight on Tuesday and as you might expect, lifeless losers all over the United States lined up outside their nearest video game store to buy a copy for Xbox, Playstation 2 or 3, Wii or Nintendo DS. Depending on your system of choice, the game costs between $30 and $60. On the cover is a picture of Brett Favre in a Green Bay Packers jersey, an image chosen well before the prima donna quarterback played his game of retirement chicken and ended up losign a showdown with the Packers that ended with Favre traded to the Jets. It’s the 20th anniversary edition of Madden and there are, as always, new features to learn. At the game’s easiest level, the computer will actually selected plays for you and compensate for a beginner’s lack of experience. Each time you play, your skill level is adjusted based on your experience, so the game grows with you, so to speak. In Franchise mode, you guide your team through one or more seasons and there’s a new rivalry feature with ratchets up the pressure against key division rivals, making each task in the game a bit more difficult. It almost goes without saying that the graphics are amazing, realistic and breathtaking. There are also Madden Moments, which give players the chance to try to recreate great moments from the 2007-08 NFL season. For women out there who haven’t seen their husband, fiancé or boyfriend since Tuesday, all of this information probably isn't improving your mood. For the rest of you, this is a game you should play for yourself so you can see how good it really is……
- This is a new and pathetic low for porn addicts seeking to get their fix. A man claiming to be a police detective hit up his local adult video store in Longmont, Colo. and tried to get the owner to give him free videos by claiming that he was a cop making sure that none of the performers in the videos were underage. Worse yet, this tool tried the same stunt three times in nine days and was rebuffed every time. After the third attempt, the owner called police, who are now searching for the faux detective. Nice scam, knob. Yeah, that’s exactly how it works, local police get porn from local video stores, porn created by people in other states across the country, and they watch the videos to check for underage chicks getting after it. Hate to burst your pretend law enforcement bubble, amigo, but the local police wouldn’t be looking into that. It would be a federal matter and even then, the investigators aren't going door-to-door at local stores, asking for free DVDs. Dude, I’ve never been inside an adult video store so I don’t know what their prices are, but I know that normal, non-porn DVDs are less than $20, less than $10 on the discount rack. So you have to be able to get some porn videos for around that amount, and if not, put some spare change in one of those creepy, nasty viewing booths that adult video stores are always advertising on their big neon signs. What a pathetic, disgusting loser…..this guy is at the bottom of the barrel, even for porn addicts……
- Hearing that a $5 million lawsuit has been filed against teeny bopper musician Vanessa Hudgens isn't all that surprising and it would be even less surprising if you were allowed to sue people for putting out terrible albums. However, that dream of mine has yet to be realized and so I’ll have to settle for the fact that a music producer has filed a $5 million lawsuit against Hudgens, accusing her of breach of contract and failure to pay him his share of earnings. According to documents filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Monday, the 19-year-old signed a court-approved agreement in 2005, when she was a minor, with Johnny Vieira. The deal stipulated that she must share advances, royalties and merchandising revenue with him. Once Hudgens became well-known for her High School Musical gig, she and her father Greg negotiated a deal to get out of the contract. The facts of the case seem to indicate that Vieria is owed money, with two audit reports showing that he is due money. To this point, Hudgens has refused to pay up. But money isn't all Vieria is after; he’s also suing Greg Hudgens for defamation of character, alleging that Papa Hudgens called him a “predator” in e-mails to third parties. Maybe I’m just being a cynic, but this sounds to me like a wannabe child star inking a deal with a producer when no one else would have anything to do with her and then figuring that once she became famous, she could get out of that deal and didn’t need the guy’s help anymore. Pay what you owe, V., and be glad I’m not allowed to sue you for foisting that over-produced garbage you call music on the world…..
- Hypocrisy runs deep in China, even in the “pageantry and prestige” of the Summer Olympics. Ironically, it’s a superficial issue that is highlighting the depth of that hypocrisy, showing that not only do the Chinese trample human rights in their own and neighboring countries, they also are as vapid as despicable as anyone in any country, anywhere. The controversy comes after it was revealed that Lin Miaoke, the cute little 9-year-old girl who sang “Ode to the Motherland” as the Chinese flag was paraded around Beijing National Stadium during the opening ceremonies, wasn’t actually singing at all. Lin was lip-syncing to the voice of 7-year-old Yang Peiyi, who was offstage, singing live. Why not just let Peiyi be the one on stage singing if her voice is so great? Because she’s not cute enough, that’s why. “The reason was for the national interest,” explained Chen Qigang, the music director for the ceremony. “The child on stage should be flawless in image. We had to do it. We’d been through several inspections. When we rehearsed the spot, there were several spectators, especially leaders from the Politburo, who gave the opinion that it must change.” Right, because the message you want to send is that only if you’re physically attractive can you be on stage singing. Nothing like telling a 7-year-old that she isn't pretty enough and needs to sing behind the curtain while a prettier girl pretends to be the one singing. That won't stick with the kid at all and devastate her self-confidence. Wanna know a little secret, China? It looks worse for your national interest to have everyone see you yank a 7-year-old from the stage because she’s too ugly than it would have to put her out there to sing regardless of her appearance. People are funny that way, but they’re not going to be too concerned with the appearance of a 7-year-old singing in front of billions of people worldwide. They tend to cut kids some slack and not think less of you because you put her out there. But for a nation that has trampled all over everything in its path with calloused disregard for human rights and dignity in its quest to put on an Olympic experience that will show everyone how great you are, this isn't a surprise at all…..we probably should have expected it, actually.
- Despite an anachronistic image on the cover, Madden ’09 seems to be a big hit with gamers worldwide. The most popular football-themed video game around went on sale just after midnight on Tuesday and as you might expect, lifeless losers all over the United States lined up outside their nearest video game store to buy a copy for Xbox, Playstation 2 or 3, Wii or Nintendo DS. Depending on your system of choice, the game costs between $30 and $60. On the cover is a picture of Brett Favre in a Green Bay Packers jersey, an image chosen well before the prima donna quarterback played his game of retirement chicken and ended up losign a showdown with the Packers that ended with Favre traded to the Jets. It’s the 20th anniversary edition of Madden and there are, as always, new features to learn. At the game’s easiest level, the computer will actually selected plays for you and compensate for a beginner’s lack of experience. Each time you play, your skill level is adjusted based on your experience, so the game grows with you, so to speak. In Franchise mode, you guide your team through one or more seasons and there’s a new rivalry feature with ratchets up the pressure against key division rivals, making each task in the game a bit more difficult. It almost goes without saying that the graphics are amazing, realistic and breathtaking. There are also Madden Moments, which give players the chance to try to recreate great moments from the 2007-08 NFL season. For women out there who haven’t seen their husband, fiancé or boyfriend since Tuesday, all of this information probably isn't improving your mood. For the rest of you, this is a game you should play for yourself so you can see how good it really is……
- This is a new and pathetic low for porn addicts seeking to get their fix. A man claiming to be a police detective hit up his local adult video store in Longmont, Colo. and tried to get the owner to give him free videos by claiming that he was a cop making sure that none of the performers in the videos were underage. Worse yet, this tool tried the same stunt three times in nine days and was rebuffed every time. After the third attempt, the owner called police, who are now searching for the faux detective. Nice scam, knob. Yeah, that’s exactly how it works, local police get porn from local video stores, porn created by people in other states across the country, and they watch the videos to check for underage chicks getting after it. Hate to burst your pretend law enforcement bubble, amigo, but the local police wouldn’t be looking into that. It would be a federal matter and even then, the investigators aren't going door-to-door at local stores, asking for free DVDs. Dude, I’ve never been inside an adult video store so I don’t know what their prices are, but I know that normal, non-porn DVDs are less than $20, less than $10 on the discount rack. So you have to be able to get some porn videos for around that amount, and if not, put some spare change in one of those creepy, nasty viewing booths that adult video stores are always advertising on their big neon signs. What a pathetic, disgusting loser…..this guy is at the bottom of the barrel, even for porn addicts……
- Hearing that a $5 million lawsuit has been filed against teeny bopper musician Vanessa Hudgens isn't all that surprising and it would be even less surprising if you were allowed to sue people for putting out terrible albums. However, that dream of mine has yet to be realized and so I’ll have to settle for the fact that a music producer has filed a $5 million lawsuit against Hudgens, accusing her of breach of contract and failure to pay him his share of earnings. According to documents filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Monday, the 19-year-old signed a court-approved agreement in 2005, when she was a minor, with Johnny Vieira. The deal stipulated that she must share advances, royalties and merchandising revenue with him. Once Hudgens became well-known for her High School Musical gig, she and her father Greg negotiated a deal to get out of the contract. The facts of the case seem to indicate that Vieria is owed money, with two audit reports showing that he is due money. To this point, Hudgens has refused to pay up. But money isn't all Vieria is after; he’s also suing Greg Hudgens for defamation of character, alleging that Papa Hudgens called him a “predator” in e-mails to third parties. Maybe I’m just being a cynic, but this sounds to me like a wannabe child star inking a deal with a producer when no one else would have anything to do with her and then figuring that once she became famous, she could get out of that deal and didn’t need the guy’s help anymore. Pay what you owe, V., and be glad I’m not allowed to sue you for foisting that over-produced garbage you call music on the world…..
Thursday, August 14, 2008
700 pounds of mobile flab, making things invisible and a bad week for presidents
- Not a good week for presidents worldwide. Our own president W. is still a moron, Mauritania’s president was ousted from office and jailed and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is facing intense pressure to either resign or be impeached. On Monday, one of Pakistan’s four provincial assemblies passed a non-binding resolution calling for Musharraf to resign, with the resolution passing by a whopping 321-25 margin. Its language calls the president an incompetent leader whose policies have “brought Pakistan to the brink of a critical political and economic impasse.” Oh, how appropriate those words would be for certain other presidents in the world (cough, W., cough, President of the United States, cough). But I digress….the resolution also alleges that Musharraf’s policies have “plunged Pakistan into the worst power shortage in its history.” His opponents are giving him the option of resigning or calling for a vote of confidence in Pakistan’s national parliament. Musharraf does have the option of ignoring those calls for him to quit or call for the vote, although the groundswell of opposition against him is so strong that he needs to do something - anything - to quiet it or his country is going to disintegrate before his eyes….
- This is what I call putting your MIT education to good use. Three students from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology were planning to give a presentation at the Defcon computer hackers’ conference in Las Vegas Sunday, but a federal judge issued a last-minute temporary restraining order blocking the students from making their presentation. The topic of their talk was to be security flaws in the automated fare system used by Boston’s subway. Apparently telling a conference auditorium full of hackers how to score free fares on the subway system of a city that almost none of them live in is a big problem. Sure, the instant you share that information with a conference hall full of hackers you might as well broadcast it on national television and post it online at every major website, but so what? If these smart kids have found a way to beat the system, it’s not their problem, it’s the problem of the transit authority in Boston. Maybe once the flaws are made public, they’ll be motivated and able to fix those flaws. Why keep people from sharing information that would obviously be beneficial to those receiving it. I’m pretty certain that when the parents of those three students sent their kids off to MIT, this is what they hoped for; that their kids would find a way to help people rip off Boston’s subway system. So back off, federal judge in Massachusetts, no one likes someone with a stick up their ass and no sense of humor…..
- NFL players are not generally known for being candidates for Mensa. That’s not to say that all or even most of them are dumb, because there are quite a few intelligent guys in the league. However, it doesn’t help make the case for their intelligence when you have dudes sustaining serious lacerations on their feet during practice because they were dumb enough to do sprints with teammates while not wearing any shoes. The genius in question is Braylon Edwards, whom the Cleveland Browns will now be without for their next two preseason games because he was running sprints barefoot and fellow wide receiver Donte Stallworth inadvertently stepped on Edwards’ foot with his sharp spikes. The resulting laceration required stitches and it will knock Edwards out of commission for a couple of weeks. Nothing like suffering an injury because you can't’ keep your shoes on. Maybe I’m just overly cautious, but if I’m around 100 or so guys in cleats and many of whom weigh 200-300 pounds, I’m not exposing my bare feet. Too many bad things can happen if you do, things like huge gashes that sideline you when you’re supposed to be preparing for the season. Take this one as a life lesson and stop being Shoeless Braylon, it’ll be better for everyone, B., I promise……..
- If you were in northern Mexico or the southern portion of the state of Texas Sunday and thought you felt the Earth shift on its axis, don’t be worried. That was just Manuel Uribe, formerly the world’s most obese human being but now slim and svelte at 700 pounds, out for a little day trip. Uribe left his home for the first time in five months (still more often than pale, pasty, never-kissed-a-girl Star Wars dorks in their Darth Vader costumes) with the aid of a forklift and platform truck, making a trip to a local lake where he snacked on fruit and fish and relaxed. On a side note, if you need a forklift and flatbed truck to leave your home, maybe you shouldn’t be eating at all or at most, once a day. To make matters more comical, Uribe was transported while in his specially designed bed and never left the bed during the trip. I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again: people that FAT are really, really depressing. If you let yourself go to the point where you weigh more than 300 pounds (assuming your not 7 feet tall), that’s just sad. You’re basically saying to everyone that you’ve given up on life to the point that you weigh as much as three of four normal people combined and don’t care about the ugly, jiggly rolls of fat all over your body. For your own sake and the sake of anyone who has to look at you, trim it down and at least give yourself a fighting chance to see your feet every now and then…..
- It seems appropriate on the heels of that last story to mention that recent scientific developments have brought us a step closer to being able to make three-dimensional objects invisible. While making a ginormous pile of fatty flab like Manuel Uribe invisible seems like a Herculean task times a thousand, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have demonstrated for the first time that they are able to cloak 3-D objects using artificially engineered materials that reflect light around objects. Previously, scientists have only been able to cloak two-dimensional objects, so this is a big advance. The findings will be published in two scientific journals I’m sure you all already subscribe to, Nature and Science. As for cloaking 700-pound fatties like Uribe….look for articles on that in the Journal of Impossible Things That Will Never Happen and expect that journal to be published right around never, give or take a week or two.….
- This is what I call putting your MIT education to good use. Three students from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology were planning to give a presentation at the Defcon computer hackers’ conference in Las Vegas Sunday, but a federal judge issued a last-minute temporary restraining order blocking the students from making their presentation. The topic of their talk was to be security flaws in the automated fare system used by Boston’s subway. Apparently telling a conference auditorium full of hackers how to score free fares on the subway system of a city that almost none of them live in is a big problem. Sure, the instant you share that information with a conference hall full of hackers you might as well broadcast it on national television and post it online at every major website, but so what? If these smart kids have found a way to beat the system, it’s not their problem, it’s the problem of the transit authority in Boston. Maybe once the flaws are made public, they’ll be motivated and able to fix those flaws. Why keep people from sharing information that would obviously be beneficial to those receiving it. I’m pretty certain that when the parents of those three students sent their kids off to MIT, this is what they hoped for; that their kids would find a way to help people rip off Boston’s subway system. So back off, federal judge in Massachusetts, no one likes someone with a stick up their ass and no sense of humor…..
- NFL players are not generally known for being candidates for Mensa. That’s not to say that all or even most of them are dumb, because there are quite a few intelligent guys in the league. However, it doesn’t help make the case for their intelligence when you have dudes sustaining serious lacerations on their feet during practice because they were dumb enough to do sprints with teammates while not wearing any shoes. The genius in question is Braylon Edwards, whom the Cleveland Browns will now be without for their next two preseason games because he was running sprints barefoot and fellow wide receiver Donte Stallworth inadvertently stepped on Edwards’ foot with his sharp spikes. The resulting laceration required stitches and it will knock Edwards out of commission for a couple of weeks. Nothing like suffering an injury because you can't’ keep your shoes on. Maybe I’m just overly cautious, but if I’m around 100 or so guys in cleats and many of whom weigh 200-300 pounds, I’m not exposing my bare feet. Too many bad things can happen if you do, things like huge gashes that sideline you when you’re supposed to be preparing for the season. Take this one as a life lesson and stop being Shoeless Braylon, it’ll be better for everyone, B., I promise……..
- If you were in northern Mexico or the southern portion of the state of Texas Sunday and thought you felt the Earth shift on its axis, don’t be worried. That was just Manuel Uribe, formerly the world’s most obese human being but now slim and svelte at 700 pounds, out for a little day trip. Uribe left his home for the first time in five months (still more often than pale, pasty, never-kissed-a-girl Star Wars dorks in their Darth Vader costumes) with the aid of a forklift and platform truck, making a trip to a local lake where he snacked on fruit and fish and relaxed. On a side note, if you need a forklift and flatbed truck to leave your home, maybe you shouldn’t be eating at all or at most, once a day. To make matters more comical, Uribe was transported while in his specially designed bed and never left the bed during the trip. I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again: people that FAT are really, really depressing. If you let yourself go to the point where you weigh more than 300 pounds (assuming your not 7 feet tall), that’s just sad. You’re basically saying to everyone that you’ve given up on life to the point that you weigh as much as three of four normal people combined and don’t care about the ugly, jiggly rolls of fat all over your body. For your own sake and the sake of anyone who has to look at you, trim it down and at least give yourself a fighting chance to see your feet every now and then…..
- It seems appropriate on the heels of that last story to mention that recent scientific developments have brought us a step closer to being able to make three-dimensional objects invisible. While making a ginormous pile of fatty flab like Manuel Uribe invisible seems like a Herculean task times a thousand, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have demonstrated for the first time that they are able to cloak 3-D objects using artificially engineered materials that reflect light around objects. Previously, scientists have only been able to cloak two-dimensional objects, so this is a big advance. The findings will be published in two scientific journals I’m sure you all already subscribe to, Nature and Science. As for cloaking 700-pound fatties like Uribe….look for articles on that in the Journal of Impossible Things That Will Never Happen and expect that journal to be published right around never, give or take a week or two.….
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Batman still on top, a Manhattan block party and Mexicans acting very American-like
- Maybe this money could be headed to a more deserving source, but it’s not at all surprising that Lost producer ABC Studios has entered into contract renegotiations with the show’s two biggest stars, Matthew Fox (Jack) and Evangeline Lilly (Kate). Right now, both actors earn about $150,000 per episode, but with the phenomenal ending to last season and the show’s still-growing popularity, you can see where Fox and Lilly might think they deserve a raise. I contend that the writers for the show are the ones who deserve a bump in pay, given the masterpiece of TV they crafted for the Season 4 finale, in which an entire freaking island (fictionally) disappeared right in the middle of the ocean. The studio tried to do the Fox/Lilly negotiations quietly, but as often happens in these situations, word of the talks about bigger paychecks leaked out and reps for some of the other cast members asked the studio to open their own renegotiations. According to industry sources, most of the other series regulars earn about $80,000-$90,000 per episode. If the cast of any show on TV right now deserves raises, it’s the Lost island dwellers, so stay tuned to see how this turns out….
- USC vs. USC. The epic battle for one of college athletics’ most famous acronyms is getting heated, mostly because the University of South Carolina appears to be run by a bunch of delusional idiots who have the misguided belief that anyone outside of their campus and fan base associates them with those three letters. Ask any college sports fan, even casual ones, who they link with the USC moniker and the response will almost immediately be the University of Southern California. The Trojans have won 11 national championships in football, produced seven Heisman trophy winners and are perennially at the top of the college football polls. South Carolina, on the other hand, can't even win their division in the Southeastern Conference, let alone a national title. Despite hiring the OBC (Ol’ Ball Coach) Steve Spurrier several years ago to breathe life into their perpetually good-but-not-great program, the Gamecocks have won a grand total of zero division, conference or national championships. Yet there they are, trying to drop lawsuits in Southern Cal to take back the USC label and “SC” logo featuring an interlocked, block version of the two letters. South Carolina people have taken to calling Southern Cal “imposters” and insisting that because their school was founded 80 years earlier, they have rights to the name and logo. The main problem, other than them sucking, is that Southern Cal trademarked the “SC” logo long before South Carolina got around to doing so. An administrative tribunal sitting in judgment of the case ruled in favor of Southern Cal, which settles the matter legally but isn't going to keep South Carolina administrators and fans from b*tching and complaining. Win something - anything - and then come and bump your gums, South Carolina….
- Scratch one possible solution to beating high gas prices off your list. The city of Ciudad Acuna is sick and tired of American drivers making the short jaunt across the border and filling up extra gas cans, barrels and even tanks with government-subsidized Mexican fuel. The city sits just across the border from the town of Del Rio, Texas, making it an easy target for people looking to stock up on cheap fuel illegally. Law enforcement officials in Ciudad Acuna fired back by fining four U.S. residents trying to score cheap Mexican fuel and impounding their vehicles until they pay up. Ironic, isn't it? Mexicans getting pissed at Americans for coming across the border and thieving things that belong to them? Maybe if we limit the practice to those who have lost their jobs to illegal immigrants and need to cheaper diesel to survive, how does that sound Mexico? How long until Ciudad Acuna is erecting a ginormous border wall to keep out illegal fuel seekers from the U.S.? Wait, that’s our thing? Oh…..
- Stoner comedy done well is great cinema, but even a funny new comedy like Pineapple Express proved to be no match for Gotham’s hero, the one and only Batman. Despite a strong start from Pineapple on Friday, The Dark Knight remained at the top of the movie heap for a fourth straight weekend. While the Seth Rogen-fueled Express brought in $7.9 million Friday, it slipped on Saturday and Sunday and ended the weekend with a total of $22.4 million. All told, it has earned $40.4 million since its Wednesday opening. The Dark Knight's had its most modest weekend yet, raking in only $26 million weekend for a domestic total of $441.5 million. That allowed Dark Knight to pass Shrek 2 to become the third highest grossing domestic flick of all time, behind Star Wars and Titanic. Following on the weekend box office earning list were The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor ($16.1 million), The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 ($10.8 million over the weekend, $19.7 million since Wednesday) and Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly's Step Brothers ($8.9 million). Aside from Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, that means there were four pretty good films in the top five, which is a rarity during summer blockbuster season or at any time of year, actually…..
- Depending which side of the issue you’re on, a 6.9-mile stretch of Manhattan roads became either a summer oasis/giant block party or your biggest freaking nightmare for six hours Saturday. As part of an experiment called Summer Streets, the city of New York turned the stretch of road between the Brooklyn Bridge and East 72nd Street into a car-free zone. The idea is to create a place for runners, bikers and loungers to enjoy a playground-like atmosphere in the heart of a normally bustling city scene. Cities all over the world have been trying out the concept and seeking to create a livable, ecologically friendly urban environment in the process. The area carved out in Manhattan also had links to Central Park and other open spaces, so it seems like a good idea that should get another run soon. The event saw a great turnout and it was almost worth it all just for the image of a calm, traffic free chunk of Manhattan on a weekend, even for six hours. Of course, if you’re one of the insane motorists who was trying to traverse the crowded city streets during those six hours, the words coming to your mind (and out of your mouth) probably weren’t positive and more than likely were four-letter bombs….it’s all a matter of perspective, though…..
- USC vs. USC. The epic battle for one of college athletics’ most famous acronyms is getting heated, mostly because the University of South Carolina appears to be run by a bunch of delusional idiots who have the misguided belief that anyone outside of their campus and fan base associates them with those three letters. Ask any college sports fan, even casual ones, who they link with the USC moniker and the response will almost immediately be the University of Southern California. The Trojans have won 11 national championships in football, produced seven Heisman trophy winners and are perennially at the top of the college football polls. South Carolina, on the other hand, can't even win their division in the Southeastern Conference, let alone a national title. Despite hiring the OBC (Ol’ Ball Coach) Steve Spurrier several years ago to breathe life into their perpetually good-but-not-great program, the Gamecocks have won a grand total of zero division, conference or national championships. Yet there they are, trying to drop lawsuits in Southern Cal to take back the USC label and “SC” logo featuring an interlocked, block version of the two letters. South Carolina people have taken to calling Southern Cal “imposters” and insisting that because their school was founded 80 years earlier, they have rights to the name and logo. The main problem, other than them sucking, is that Southern Cal trademarked the “SC” logo long before South Carolina got around to doing so. An administrative tribunal sitting in judgment of the case ruled in favor of Southern Cal, which settles the matter legally but isn't going to keep South Carolina administrators and fans from b*tching and complaining. Win something - anything - and then come and bump your gums, South Carolina….
- Scratch one possible solution to beating high gas prices off your list. The city of Ciudad Acuna is sick and tired of American drivers making the short jaunt across the border and filling up extra gas cans, barrels and even tanks with government-subsidized Mexican fuel. The city sits just across the border from the town of Del Rio, Texas, making it an easy target for people looking to stock up on cheap fuel illegally. Law enforcement officials in Ciudad Acuna fired back by fining four U.S. residents trying to score cheap Mexican fuel and impounding their vehicles until they pay up. Ironic, isn't it? Mexicans getting pissed at Americans for coming across the border and thieving things that belong to them? Maybe if we limit the practice to those who have lost their jobs to illegal immigrants and need to cheaper diesel to survive, how does that sound Mexico? How long until Ciudad Acuna is erecting a ginormous border wall to keep out illegal fuel seekers from the U.S.? Wait, that’s our thing? Oh…..
- Stoner comedy done well is great cinema, but even a funny new comedy like Pineapple Express proved to be no match for Gotham’s hero, the one and only Batman. Despite a strong start from Pineapple on Friday, The Dark Knight remained at the top of the movie heap for a fourth straight weekend. While the Seth Rogen-fueled Express brought in $7.9 million Friday, it slipped on Saturday and Sunday and ended the weekend with a total of $22.4 million. All told, it has earned $40.4 million since its Wednesday opening. The Dark Knight's had its most modest weekend yet, raking in only $26 million weekend for a domestic total of $441.5 million. That allowed Dark Knight to pass Shrek 2 to become the third highest grossing domestic flick of all time, behind Star Wars and Titanic. Following on the weekend box office earning list were The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor ($16.1 million), The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 ($10.8 million over the weekend, $19.7 million since Wednesday) and Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly's Step Brothers ($8.9 million). Aside from Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, that means there were four pretty good films in the top five, which is a rarity during summer blockbuster season or at any time of year, actually…..
- Depending which side of the issue you’re on, a 6.9-mile stretch of Manhattan roads became either a summer oasis/giant block party or your biggest freaking nightmare for six hours Saturday. As part of an experiment called Summer Streets, the city of New York turned the stretch of road between the Brooklyn Bridge and East 72nd Street into a car-free zone. The idea is to create a place for runners, bikers and loungers to enjoy a playground-like atmosphere in the heart of a normally bustling city scene. Cities all over the world have been trying out the concept and seeking to create a livable, ecologically friendly urban environment in the process. The area carved out in Manhattan also had links to Central Park and other open spaces, so it seems like a good idea that should get another run soon. The event saw a great turnout and it was almost worth it all just for the image of a calm, traffic free chunk of Manhattan on a weekend, even for six hours. Of course, if you’re one of the insane motorists who was trying to traverse the crowded city streets during those six hours, the words coming to your mind (and out of your mouth) probably weren’t positive and more than likely were four-letter bombs….it’s all a matter of perspective, though…..
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
A biking crazed campus, attacks on pirates and a painful musical experience
- What’s the only thing worse than putting out a crap-tacular new album that cements your status as one of the most overrated, un-listenable artists in R&B or any other genre? Putting out a crap-tacular new album that cements your status as one of the most overrated, un-listenable artists in R&B or any other genre and being sued by someone who alleges that you stole much of the material for said album from them. Yes kids, I’m talking about Mary J. Blige, one of my five least-favorite artists of all-time. Her Growing Pains album was painful for a variety of reasons, but the Drama Family Entertainment company is feeling its own kind of pain, suing Blige in a federal court in Manhattan for bogarting some of the songs on the album. According to the suit, among the songs Blige pirated was Work That, which appeared on an iPod commercial. Drama Family Entertainment claims it suffered copyright infringement because the tune was written by a producer working for the company at the time it was crafted, but that producer was not credited on Blige’s album. She passed the song off as her own original work, which I might overlook but DFE won't. I’d overlook it because it’s a garbage song that blows big time, so if someone else wants to take credit for it, let ‘em. However, since money was made off the song I can see why they might sue. As with any Mary J. Blige music, the true loser here is anyone with the misfortune to hear her raw sewage passed off as music……
- Anyone who reads this space on a regular basis knows how big a fan I am of all things pirate-y. It flat-out pisses me off when navies and law enforcement ‘round the world insist on hounding and harassing the remaining pirates of the world, flag bearers for a fictional theatrical time when fake pirates would deliver clever, witty dialogue, drink rum and sing pirate songs. So today I give a big slap of disapproval to the U.S. Navy for reporting that it stopped a pirate attack on a merchant vessel north of Somalia in the Gulf of Aden. The numb nuts on the USS Peleliu responded to a call for help from the Gem of Kilakari Friday morning and deployed three helicopters to attack the pirates, who were able to lob only one grenade at the Gem of Kilakari before fleeing. The grenade didn’t explode and the pirates left with no plunder, booty, treasure or wenches. Heck, they may not even have had any rum, they fled in such a hurry. If the navies of the world keep this up, we’re not going to have any more pirates in all of their pirate-y goodness…
- Maybe I’m missing the boat on this, but can someone explain to me how a 31-point bitch-slapping in a preliminary round men’s basketball game at the Olympics qualifies as a huge event? I’m referring, of course, to the contest Sunday morning between the United States and host China in a game that U.S. players and others around the event were hailing as some sort of historical landmark. Why? I don’t know. I understand that these games are big for China and that the U.S. men’s basketball team is easily the most recognizable and famous at the Olympics, but that doesn’t make this a significant contest. It wasn’t for a medal, it was a total mismatch going in and even though the Chinese have two NBA players on their team in Yi Jianlian and Yao Ming, they had no chance to win and everyone knew it. The end result was 101-70 U.S. victory, thanks in large part to an endless array of showtime dunks by LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, Kobe Bryant and Co. Just because the host country’s team opened the tournament against a team favored to win the gold doesn’t make it a major moment in history. If it was for a medal, maybe. If it was a competitive game, it might be different. But under these circumstances, it was nothing more than the first game of the Olympics for the Americans, a chance to shake off the rust, battle through opening-game jitters and get ready for teams that actually matter in this tournament After all, the Chinese lost a pre-Olympics tune-up game to Angola, so how big a contender can they really be……
- Where better to promote environmental idealism than on the campus of an expensive, liberal arts college? About a year ago, Emory University in Atlanta kicked off its $250,000 “Bike Emory’ initiative, designed to encourage students and faculty to leave their cars at home and use bicycles as their primary means of transportation to and specifically around campus. With fall semester quickly approaching, the school is kicking things up a notch by adding bike lanes to campus roads, selling discounted bikes to students and faculty members and stocking up with hundreds of bikes that can be borrowed for free. All good ideas, except that the bikes to be borrowed will be borrowed….and kept. This is a good concept and hopefully students will buy in, but the school is begging if it thinks that a lot of them will abandon driving in favor of bikes. First, when you’re running late and need to get to class in a hurry, cars are still the fastest. Second, in case you hadn’t noticed, most college students all but live out of their cars at times, dumping an amazing majority of their crap into their trunk, back seat, etc. Biking isn't feasible for them because there’s no way to carry all of that junk on a bike. But props to Emory University for the effort and looking out for the environment, every little bit helps……
- A melancholy happy trails to Isaac Hayes, the legendary soul singer and composer who passed away over the weekend. The man who is associated foremost (and rightfully so) with the words, “They say that Shaft, he’s a bad mother - shut your mouth!” was found unconscious next to a still-running treadmill at his Memphis, Tennessee home by relatives. Hayes, 65, won multiple Grammy awards in his lifetime and also scored the 1971 Oscar for best original theme song for the theme for Shaft, the iconic black detective that the Fresh Prince of Bel Air loved so much. Hayes was longtime writer for Stax Records in Memphis, working as a writer and arranged for great artists like Otis Redding. He also played in the studio’s backup band for years, showing a wide range of vocal talents and a love for music that will be sorely missed……
- Anyone who reads this space on a regular basis knows how big a fan I am of all things pirate-y. It flat-out pisses me off when navies and law enforcement ‘round the world insist on hounding and harassing the remaining pirates of the world, flag bearers for a fictional theatrical time when fake pirates would deliver clever, witty dialogue, drink rum and sing pirate songs. So today I give a big slap of disapproval to the U.S. Navy for reporting that it stopped a pirate attack on a merchant vessel north of Somalia in the Gulf of Aden. The numb nuts on the USS Peleliu responded to a call for help from the Gem of Kilakari Friday morning and deployed three helicopters to attack the pirates, who were able to lob only one grenade at the Gem of Kilakari before fleeing. The grenade didn’t explode and the pirates left with no plunder, booty, treasure or wenches. Heck, they may not even have had any rum, they fled in such a hurry. If the navies of the world keep this up, we’re not going to have any more pirates in all of their pirate-y goodness…
- Maybe I’m missing the boat on this, but can someone explain to me how a 31-point bitch-slapping in a preliminary round men’s basketball game at the Olympics qualifies as a huge event? I’m referring, of course, to the contest Sunday morning between the United States and host China in a game that U.S. players and others around the event were hailing as some sort of historical landmark. Why? I don’t know. I understand that these games are big for China and that the U.S. men’s basketball team is easily the most recognizable and famous at the Olympics, but that doesn’t make this a significant contest. It wasn’t for a medal, it was a total mismatch going in and even though the Chinese have two NBA players on their team in Yi Jianlian and Yao Ming, they had no chance to win and everyone knew it. The end result was 101-70 U.S. victory, thanks in large part to an endless array of showtime dunks by LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, Kobe Bryant and Co. Just because the host country’s team opened the tournament against a team favored to win the gold doesn’t make it a major moment in history. If it was for a medal, maybe. If it was a competitive game, it might be different. But under these circumstances, it was nothing more than the first game of the Olympics for the Americans, a chance to shake off the rust, battle through opening-game jitters and get ready for teams that actually matter in this tournament After all, the Chinese lost a pre-Olympics tune-up game to Angola, so how big a contender can they really be……
- Where better to promote environmental idealism than on the campus of an expensive, liberal arts college? About a year ago, Emory University in Atlanta kicked off its $250,000 “Bike Emory’ initiative, designed to encourage students and faculty to leave their cars at home and use bicycles as their primary means of transportation to and specifically around campus. With fall semester quickly approaching, the school is kicking things up a notch by adding bike lanes to campus roads, selling discounted bikes to students and faculty members and stocking up with hundreds of bikes that can be borrowed for free. All good ideas, except that the bikes to be borrowed will be borrowed….and kept. This is a good concept and hopefully students will buy in, but the school is begging if it thinks that a lot of them will abandon driving in favor of bikes. First, when you’re running late and need to get to class in a hurry, cars are still the fastest. Second, in case you hadn’t noticed, most college students all but live out of their cars at times, dumping an amazing majority of their crap into their trunk, back seat, etc. Biking isn't feasible for them because there’s no way to carry all of that junk on a bike. But props to Emory University for the effort and looking out for the environment, every little bit helps……
- A melancholy happy trails to Isaac Hayes, the legendary soul singer and composer who passed away over the weekend. The man who is associated foremost (and rightfully so) with the words, “They say that Shaft, he’s a bad mother - shut your mouth!” was found unconscious next to a still-running treadmill at his Memphis, Tennessee home by relatives. Hayes, 65, won multiple Grammy awards in his lifetime and also scored the 1971 Oscar for best original theme song for the theme for Shaft, the iconic black detective that the Fresh Prince of Bel Air loved so much. Hayes was longtime writer for Stax Records in Memphis, working as a writer and arranged for great artists like Otis Redding. He also played in the studio’s backup band for years, showing a wide range of vocal talents and a love for music that will be sorely missed……
Monday, August 11, 2008
A fun game of "Where is your mayor?", some boring Olympic events and a truce in Zimbabwe?
- You know I love bringing good news to all of the dorks out there, so this bit of news about Battlestar Galactica should be fun for you. With the final 10 episodes of the series set to air in 2009 and bring the long-running voyage of dorks worldwide to an end, there has been a sad, resigned atmosphere to the BSG universe. However, the Sci Fi Channel is looking to buoy those spirits with news that it is working on a prequel movie that will air once the series ends. Right now, the movie project is being labeled the “special event” and it be set in the time frame prior to the miniseries that revived the BSG franchise back in 2003. Jane Espenson and BSG star Edward James Olmos will write the movie and it is expected to feature many familiar characters from the series, which I might know if I spoke dork and was enough of a nerd to have watched a single second of the show. Since I haven’t, I’ll have to leave the rejoicing over this new development to the pocket protector, Dungeons and Dragons segment of the population….
- I hesitated about posting this next one because I think we need some hard, empirical data to verify this one. Reports are now circulating that the waifish, effeminate former American Karaoke karaoke-er Clay Aiken is a father. I have to doubt this because if there is anyone so girlish and effeminate that you wonder whether he actually has all of his man parts, it’s Aiken. Dude sings, looks and acts like a chick far too much to reach even the most minimal qualifications on the manliness scale. Yet there he is, posting an announcement on his website (shouldn’t you have to not suck royally as a musician before you can have your own site anywhere other than MySpace?) that his son Parker Foster Aiken was born Friday in North Carolina. The mother, who appropriately enough has a man’s name, Jaymes Foster, is Aiken’s friend and record producer, none of which speaks well of her. If she’s associating herself with Aiken musically, she’s already forfeited all of her credibility in that arena of life. If she’s having a kid with Aiken, that speaks ill of her in another area of life. That the two of them met while part of the biggest blight in all of music, American Karaoke, cements the bad vibe and bodes poorly for this child as he tries to make his way through life. You’ve got about five strikes against you, P.F. Aiken, but you’re only a few days old so your blissfully ignorant of all of this….for now.
- A power-sharing agreement is near in Zimbabwe, and all it took was the murder of hundreds of innocent people by those in power, constant abuse and harassment of opposition members and two fraudulent shams of elections. President Bob Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai are in face-to-face negotiations for a pact that would split power between the two groups even though Mugabe has no right to any power, having lost the initial presidential election in March and only won the subsequent runoff election after marring the results of the first one and running a campaign of terror and harassment that drovr Tsvangirai from the runoff. South African President Thabo Mbeki is in Zimbabwe’s capital city of Harare to mediate the negotiations for the mixed government, which then will have to address a country that has been thrown into chaos ever since the disputed March election. It isn't an optimal solution for those in the opposition movement and the country as a whole, most of whom want to see a vicious, despotic dictator like Mugabe driven from office, but it’s better than the alternative of no involvement in the government for Tsvangirai and his Movement for Democratic Change. Now all that’s left to do is hope that a deceitful, duplicitous son of a bitch like Bob Mugabe actually honors the terms of the deal he signs….
- Still believe the Olympics are a life-altering, monumentally important event? Tehn clearly you haven’t been watching preliminary rounds of rowing, equestrian events and fencing. Those were some of the first events we got a glimpse of in Beijing and….they were boring. No offense to those athletes whose specialty is jumping in a long, skinny boat and rowing backwards for thousands of meters, but your sport does not make for good TV even if it is the Olympics. The second one person or team gets a few meters ahead, the race is virtually over because making up distance is next to impossible. Equestrian events feature people in funny clothes jumping their horses over obstacles and as I’ve previously stated, if your “sport” involves the majority of the power being supplied by something non-human, a sport you are not. Fencing is another downer, a few short bursts of action where you can’t really tell what happened and the judges are running to the replay monitor after nearly every bit of action to see who actually scored a point. One upside to the tape-delayed coverage of segments of the games is that when a mediocre women’s soccer match between Canada and China is on MSNBC, you can flip over to ESPNEWS, see on the crawler that the game ended in the same 1-1 tie it now sits in at halftime on the tape-delayed broadcast and not waste any time watching the second half because nothing is going to happen. So overall, not a stellar opening weekend for the Games, maybe things will get better…but probably not…..
- Where is your city’s mayor right now? Depending on what time of day you’re reading this, your city’s mayor might be in his office, home sleeping or out at some important community function or meeting….or if you live in Detroit, your mayor may be in jail. Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is staring down perjury and other charges for lying under oath about an affair with his former chief of staff during a civil trial, but those are far from his only concerns at the moment. Kilpatrick has been ordered to jail because he violated his bond by taking a quick trip to Canada without notifying authorities prior to leaving. He made the short voyage across the border to Windsor, Ontario for “official city business” (didn’t know gambling in casinos was official city business, but I digress) and apologized for his mistake. Judge Ronald Giles didn’t appear to be swayed by either the mayor’s status as the leader of the city or by his contrition, demanding that Kilpatrick go to jail for his mistake just like any other citizen in his position. This guy just can’t stay out of his own way; he’s his own worst enemy and he keeps digging a bigger hole for himself. He had the affair and he could have chosen not to, he lied under oath about the affair when telling the truth would have done personal but not professional damage and he violated his bond by taking an unapproved trip. He’d better request an expedited trial date for all of the charges he’s facing because at this point, the longer he’s a free man, the more he seems to screw himself over….
- I hesitated about posting this next one because I think we need some hard, empirical data to verify this one. Reports are now circulating that the waifish, effeminate former American Karaoke karaoke-er Clay Aiken is a father. I have to doubt this because if there is anyone so girlish and effeminate that you wonder whether he actually has all of his man parts, it’s Aiken. Dude sings, looks and acts like a chick far too much to reach even the most minimal qualifications on the manliness scale. Yet there he is, posting an announcement on his website (shouldn’t you have to not suck royally as a musician before you can have your own site anywhere other than MySpace?) that his son Parker Foster Aiken was born Friday in North Carolina. The mother, who appropriately enough has a man’s name, Jaymes Foster, is Aiken’s friend and record producer, none of which speaks well of her. If she’s associating herself with Aiken musically, she’s already forfeited all of her credibility in that arena of life. If she’s having a kid with Aiken, that speaks ill of her in another area of life. That the two of them met while part of the biggest blight in all of music, American Karaoke, cements the bad vibe and bodes poorly for this child as he tries to make his way through life. You’ve got about five strikes against you, P.F. Aiken, but you’re only a few days old so your blissfully ignorant of all of this….for now.
- A power-sharing agreement is near in Zimbabwe, and all it took was the murder of hundreds of innocent people by those in power, constant abuse and harassment of opposition members and two fraudulent shams of elections. President Bob Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai are in face-to-face negotiations for a pact that would split power between the two groups even though Mugabe has no right to any power, having lost the initial presidential election in March and only won the subsequent runoff election after marring the results of the first one and running a campaign of terror and harassment that drovr Tsvangirai from the runoff. South African President Thabo Mbeki is in Zimbabwe’s capital city of Harare to mediate the negotiations for the mixed government, which then will have to address a country that has been thrown into chaos ever since the disputed March election. It isn't an optimal solution for those in the opposition movement and the country as a whole, most of whom want to see a vicious, despotic dictator like Mugabe driven from office, but it’s better than the alternative of no involvement in the government for Tsvangirai and his Movement for Democratic Change. Now all that’s left to do is hope that a deceitful, duplicitous son of a bitch like Bob Mugabe actually honors the terms of the deal he signs….
- Still believe the Olympics are a life-altering, monumentally important event? Tehn clearly you haven’t been watching preliminary rounds of rowing, equestrian events and fencing. Those were some of the first events we got a glimpse of in Beijing and….they were boring. No offense to those athletes whose specialty is jumping in a long, skinny boat and rowing backwards for thousands of meters, but your sport does not make for good TV even if it is the Olympics. The second one person or team gets a few meters ahead, the race is virtually over because making up distance is next to impossible. Equestrian events feature people in funny clothes jumping their horses over obstacles and as I’ve previously stated, if your “sport” involves the majority of the power being supplied by something non-human, a sport you are not. Fencing is another downer, a few short bursts of action where you can’t really tell what happened and the judges are running to the replay monitor after nearly every bit of action to see who actually scored a point. One upside to the tape-delayed coverage of segments of the games is that when a mediocre women’s soccer match between Canada and China is on MSNBC, you can flip over to ESPNEWS, see on the crawler that the game ended in the same 1-1 tie it now sits in at halftime on the tape-delayed broadcast and not waste any time watching the second half because nothing is going to happen. So overall, not a stellar opening weekend for the Games, maybe things will get better…but probably not…..
- Where is your city’s mayor right now? Depending on what time of day you’re reading this, your city’s mayor might be in his office, home sleeping or out at some important community function or meeting….or if you live in Detroit, your mayor may be in jail. Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is staring down perjury and other charges for lying under oath about an affair with his former chief of staff during a civil trial, but those are far from his only concerns at the moment. Kilpatrick has been ordered to jail because he violated his bond by taking a quick trip to Canada without notifying authorities prior to leaving. He made the short voyage across the border to Windsor, Ontario for “official city business” (didn’t know gambling in casinos was official city business, but I digress) and apologized for his mistake. Judge Ronald Giles didn’t appear to be swayed by either the mayor’s status as the leader of the city or by his contrition, demanding that Kilpatrick go to jail for his mistake just like any other citizen in his position. This guy just can’t stay out of his own way; he’s his own worst enemy and he keeps digging a bigger hole for himself. He had the affair and he could have chosen not to, he lied under oath about the affair when telling the truth would have done personal but not professional damage and he violated his bond by taking an unapproved trip. He’d better request an expedited trial date for all of the charges he’s facing because at this point, the longer he’s a free man, the more he seems to screw himself over….
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Using national parks for something good, CSI's new lead man search and cars running on air
- CSI fans, say hello to your newest crime scene investigator, Morpheus. Yes, Laurence Fishburne is taking over for William Peterson, a.k.a. Gil Grissom, as the top dog on the show that has spawned dozens and dozens of spin-offs for CBS including CSI: Chula Vista, CSI: Bismarck and CSI: Pawtucket. As Peterson’s character tapers off at the beginning of this coming season, it will be the man who led Neo down the path to conquer the Matrix that will take his place. Fishburne has been among the network’s top three choices for much of the search and now he has apparently beaten out John Malkovich and Kurt Russell for the role. I stopped watching the show years ago, so I don’t care much one way or the other who ends up with the gig. Just as long as that man can keep the show going long enough to spin off a half-dozen more shows in places like Myrtle Beach, Youngstown, Morgantown and Roanoke…..
- Leave it to tiny little Mauritania to show us here in the United States the way. We’ve been unable to oust our most inept, dishonest and incompetent president from office since he was elected in 2000, yet a tiny nation on the west coast of Africa can get the job done? Doesn’t seem right, does it? Army commanders in Mauritania ousted the country’s first freely elected president in decades Wednesday after a bitter, prolonged battle about his fitness to serve. At issue are President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallhi’s ties to a despised, disgraced former Mauritanian dictator and his relationships with Islamic radical groups. The ouster marks the latest step in the conflict over how to govern the people of the tiny desert nation. However, I choose to see it as a sharp indictment of the United States because even if this guy has ties to despised dictators and Islamic radicals, he’s nowhere near as big a tool as our president, yet we can’t oust W. from office? We should be ashamed of ourselves, America…..
- Great. The Chinese spent tons of money on fireworks and lights, jammed 91,000 people into the butt-ugly debacle of an Olympic stadium they threw up in Beijing and held the costliest and most extravagant opening ceremonies in the history of the Games. Can we now get on with the actual competition that is only slightly more meaningful and relevant than the pointless opening ceremonies? Yes, there were hundreds of dancers and acrobats, lots of pyrotechnics and a gymnast who appeared to be suspended in mid-air lit the Olympic torch. True, the 639-member Chinese team entered last, led by 7’6 NBA star Yao Ming. How any of that matters one damn bit to the outcome of the games, I don’t know. How it’s anything other than a waste of nearly five hours of your time, I don’t know. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that if you watched the entire broadcast, you are officially a loser. The opening ceremonies aren't packaged and intended for the same people who love actual sports. I hate to term it this way, but the opening ceremonies are chick-flick TV. The dudes who are hunkering down for NFL preseason games, pennant race baseball and March Madness aren't the ones who are down with the “pageantry and majesty” of the Olympic opening ceremonies. So thanks for wasting millions of dollars on a glorified fireworks show, China, that’s the way to show you’re a true world power….
- T. Boone Pickens may have been more on the money than any of us knew when he touted wind power as the next big thing in energy for America. Not only will wind power be harnessed to power our homes and business, it may also be powering some of the cars on our nation’s roadways as soon as 2010. That’s when a car fueled by compressed air, getting 106 miles per gallon, is scheduled to become available in the United States. The car was designed by MDI, a European company founded in 1991 by a French inventor and former race car driver. This week, New York-based Zero Pollution Motors became the first American company to obtain a license from DMI to produce the “air car” in the U.S. The production plans for the vehicle currently call for the first models to be sold in 2010 at a price of less than $18,000. Gas still plays a role in the car’s power, so don’t think this is entirely air-based. A fuel tank holding eight gallons of gas will be part of the design, with the vehicle using the fuel only when it exceeds 35 mph. The compressed air system is similar to that of a locomotive, except it doesn’t use steam. The six-seater can reach speeds of 90 mph and has a range of 800 miles thanks to that dual-energy engine. It’s a great concept, assuming you don’t want to go above 90 mph and don’t mind living with the kinks that inevitably come when a new type of car is introduced….
- All I can say is that it’s about f’ing time. For too long, our government has set aside hundreds of acres for national parks and all they get used for is outdoor activities like camping and hiking. On top of that, there are large chunks of many national parks that no one uses at all (other than animals) because they’re too remote and inaccessible. So thank goodness that some enterprising illegal immigrants are making good use of that vacant, unused land by growing fields full of ginormous marijuana plants. This activity is taking place in Sequoia National Park out in California, where hundreds of millions of dollars in marijuana plants are being grown by illegals with strong ties to Mexico’s biggest drug cartels. Predictably, the stiff, no-humor-having bureaucrats are not down with this inventive use of previously unused land. “People who farm this now are not doing this for laughs, despite the fact that Hollywood still thinks that,” snapped one official involved with an operation involving federal, state and local officials who are looking to wipe out these weed fields. So far, this operation has destroyed 420,000 plants with an estimated street value of more than $1 billion. That’s just in the past eight days, mind you. Some of these plants are over five feet tall and planted in fields with approximately 10,000 other marijuana plants. One field alone could yield enough of a harvest to have a street value of $40 million. What gets me is that many of these fields are a 2-4 hour hike from the nearest road, so why the hassle? These “farmers” are trudging all the way out there to plant and cultivate their crop and you can’t leave them alone? Just another example of The Man holding us down. Oh, and don’t you dare go taking passing shots at Hollywood for having fun with stoner humor, because that’s a direct assault on Pineapple Express and everyone knows it. Grow a sense of humor, law enforcement….
- Leave it to tiny little Mauritania to show us here in the United States the way. We’ve been unable to oust our most inept, dishonest and incompetent president from office since he was elected in 2000, yet a tiny nation on the west coast of Africa can get the job done? Doesn’t seem right, does it? Army commanders in Mauritania ousted the country’s first freely elected president in decades Wednesday after a bitter, prolonged battle about his fitness to serve. At issue are President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallhi’s ties to a despised, disgraced former Mauritanian dictator and his relationships with Islamic radical groups. The ouster marks the latest step in the conflict over how to govern the people of the tiny desert nation. However, I choose to see it as a sharp indictment of the United States because even if this guy has ties to despised dictators and Islamic radicals, he’s nowhere near as big a tool as our president, yet we can’t oust W. from office? We should be ashamed of ourselves, America…..
- Great. The Chinese spent tons of money on fireworks and lights, jammed 91,000 people into the butt-ugly debacle of an Olympic stadium they threw up in Beijing and held the costliest and most extravagant opening ceremonies in the history of the Games. Can we now get on with the actual competition that is only slightly more meaningful and relevant than the pointless opening ceremonies? Yes, there were hundreds of dancers and acrobats, lots of pyrotechnics and a gymnast who appeared to be suspended in mid-air lit the Olympic torch. True, the 639-member Chinese team entered last, led by 7’6 NBA star Yao Ming. How any of that matters one damn bit to the outcome of the games, I don’t know. How it’s anything other than a waste of nearly five hours of your time, I don’t know. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that if you watched the entire broadcast, you are officially a loser. The opening ceremonies aren't packaged and intended for the same people who love actual sports. I hate to term it this way, but the opening ceremonies are chick-flick TV. The dudes who are hunkering down for NFL preseason games, pennant race baseball and March Madness aren't the ones who are down with the “pageantry and majesty” of the Olympic opening ceremonies. So thanks for wasting millions of dollars on a glorified fireworks show, China, that’s the way to show you’re a true world power….
- T. Boone Pickens may have been more on the money than any of us knew when he touted wind power as the next big thing in energy for America. Not only will wind power be harnessed to power our homes and business, it may also be powering some of the cars on our nation’s roadways as soon as 2010. That’s when a car fueled by compressed air, getting 106 miles per gallon, is scheduled to become available in the United States. The car was designed by MDI, a European company founded in 1991 by a French inventor and former race car driver. This week, New York-based Zero Pollution Motors became the first American company to obtain a license from DMI to produce the “air car” in the U.S. The production plans for the vehicle currently call for the first models to be sold in 2010 at a price of less than $18,000. Gas still plays a role in the car’s power, so don’t think this is entirely air-based. A fuel tank holding eight gallons of gas will be part of the design, with the vehicle using the fuel only when it exceeds 35 mph. The compressed air system is similar to that of a locomotive, except it doesn’t use steam. The six-seater can reach speeds of 90 mph and has a range of 800 miles thanks to that dual-energy engine. It’s a great concept, assuming you don’t want to go above 90 mph and don’t mind living with the kinks that inevitably come when a new type of car is introduced….
- All I can say is that it’s about f’ing time. For too long, our government has set aside hundreds of acres for national parks and all they get used for is outdoor activities like camping and hiking. On top of that, there are large chunks of many national parks that no one uses at all (other than animals) because they’re too remote and inaccessible. So thank goodness that some enterprising illegal immigrants are making good use of that vacant, unused land by growing fields full of ginormous marijuana plants. This activity is taking place in Sequoia National Park out in California, where hundreds of millions of dollars in marijuana plants are being grown by illegals with strong ties to Mexico’s biggest drug cartels. Predictably, the stiff, no-humor-having bureaucrats are not down with this inventive use of previously unused land. “People who farm this now are not doing this for laughs, despite the fact that Hollywood still thinks that,” snapped one official involved with an operation involving federal, state and local officials who are looking to wipe out these weed fields. So far, this operation has destroyed 420,000 plants with an estimated street value of more than $1 billion. That’s just in the past eight days, mind you. Some of these plants are over five feet tall and planted in fields with approximately 10,000 other marijuana plants. One field alone could yield enough of a harvest to have a street value of $40 million. What gets me is that many of these fields are a 2-4 hour hike from the nearest road, so why the hassle? These “farmers” are trudging all the way out there to plant and cultivate their crop and you can’t leave them alone? Just another example of The Man holding us down. Oh, and don’t you dare go taking passing shots at Hollywood for having fun with stoner humor, because that’s a direct assault on Pineapple Express and everyone knows it. Grow a sense of humor, law enforcement….
Saturday, August 09, 2008
The most popular man at Ohio U., preacher's wives assaulting people and a date for leaving Iraq...no, seriously.....
- All finished buying your dog a sweater, designer doggy bed, a luxury dog carrier and every other ridiculous trinket that dog owners are snatching up these days for their beloved pooches? Looking to network with other likeminded, friendless losers who idiotically and erroneously refer to their dogs as their “kids” and feed them better than most humans eat? Allow me to introduce you to Doggyspace.com, a new social networking website for dog lovers that’s a cross between MySpace and YouTube, according to its creator. Not a link I’d want to make, what with MySpace being a haven for pedophiles and sexual predators, but whatever. Users of Doggyspace.com can create profiles, share photos and videos and chat with other losers who have no friends and thus dote on their dogs like actual human beings. In a stat that doesn’t speak well for the ladies out there, approximately 73 percent of the site’s 700 current members are women. Thankfully 73 percent of 700 comes to only 438, so it’s not a widespread indictment of the female population. It is, however, a sweeping indictment of every single person who has, is, or will ever use the site…..
- I used to think George Lucas lived in the state of California. Now I know that he actually lives in a much different, much more distant state: a state of delusion. The erstwhile creator of Star Wars and also a huge part of the Indiana Jones movies clearly dint get the message about how bad the latest installment of the latter movie franchise is. Indiana Jones: Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was a terrible movie and damn near ruined the entire series for many people, yet Lucas is talking like a fifth Indy flick is something he’s seriously considering. Despite Harrison Ford being too old to still pull off the role of brawling, charming action hero/archaeologist, Lucas insists that a fifth Indiana Jones movie is a distinct possibility. One point I will agree with Lucas on is that no one else can fill the role and that when Ford is out, the franchise is as well. Problem is, that time is already here. “He is Indiana Jones. If Indiana Jones isn't in it, you’d have to call it ‘Mutt Williams and the search for Elvis.’” quipped Lucas in a recent interview. Mutt Williams is of course the name of Shia LeBouf’s character in Crystal Skull. No way he or anyone else fills Ford’s shoes. However, at this point in time there’s no way Ford can fill Ford’s shoes either. George Lucas needs top focus on tending to his legions of Star Wars dorks who are breathlessly awaiting Star Wars: The Clone Wars, both the animated movie in theaters next week and the animated series on TNT and Cartoon Network this fall. Heck, Lucas even intends to have a live-action Star Wars show soon, so just let Indiana Jones fade into oblivion and we’ll all agree to forget that Crystal Skull ever happened.
- It may not be soon enough (not when now would be about six years too late), but news that the U.S. and Iraqi governments are nearing a deal that would establish a firm date for withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq is the best news we’ve had since this God-forsaken war started so many years ago. According to Haider Al-Ababdi, a Shiite parliament member of Iraq’s Dawa Party, negotiations are ongoing but a deal is imminent between the two sides. Under the terms of the proposed deal, combat troops would leave Iraq by December 2010, with all other U.S. troops out of the country by the end of 2011. Additionally, troops would pull out of Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009 to remain at their established bases around the country. In other words, they want us the heck out of a place we never should have been to begin with and for some miraculous reason, our leaders are finally listening. Again, our troops leaving today would have been far too late, but at least 2010 and 2011 are sooner than the hundred more years that idiotic geriatric bastard John McCain vowed to stay in Iraq….
- Being a preacher’s wife is a tough spot. You receive a lot of attention because your man is a religious leader, someone who is supposed to uphold high moral and ethical standards at all times. You’re expected to do the same, so it’s a difficult position. That spotlight becomes even brighter when you are co-pastor of a megachurch along with your husband. With that in mind, being the defendant in a lawsuit that alleges you violently assaulted someone on an airplane is probably a bad idea. Such is the plight of Victoria Osteen, wife of well-known televangelist Joel Osteen, he of the ginormous teeth and hair plastered in place so strongly than a nuclear strike couldn’t dislodge it. According to the lawsuit filed by Continental Airlines air waitress Sharon Brown, Victoria Osteen accosted her on a plane prior to takeoff back in 2005. Brown claims that Osteen became enraged about a stain on her first-class seat and came after Brown. Victoria Osteen reportedly threw Brown against a bathroom door and elbowed her in the chest, causing minor injuries. Good play, Vicky. If there’s a stain on your seat in first class, you definitely don’t want to politely ask the flight crew to clean it or to relocate you to a new seat. You don’t want to try and cover it over with a towel or anything; you want to make a bee line to the nearest air waitress and (allegedly) assault her. For the attack, Osteen has already been fined $3,000 by the FAA for interfering with a member of a flight crew. She now faces the suit from Brown, which seeks damages that would amount to 10 percent of Victoria Osteen’s net worth. A steep request, since I’m sure she’s worth more than a million dollars. It’s a greedy demand that I doubt Brown will see all of, but then again, she was on the receiving end of an unprovoked attack from someone who is supposed to be a minister of God. Nice job representing your faith, V.
- Michael Eynon is going to be able to throw a lot of keggers now. As most college students are impoverished schlubs living on ramen noodles and Easy Mac, the Ohio University student is now one of the wealthier students on the Athens, Ohio campus thanks to winning the multistate Mega Millions drawing on the ticket he bought at a Shop Mart in Athens. Eynon, who is also a member of the Ohio University football team, will score a payoff of $250,000 before taxes for matching the lotto’s five numbers correctly. “It hasn't settled in yet,” he said. “I've been out throwing footballs, and it's still the same routine.” That should last as long as it takes his boys to start hitting him up for loans and asking him to pay for the kegs at their next party. The odds of matching five numbers, excluding the Mega Ball, were 1 in 3,904,701. Unfortunately for Eynon, he wasn’t able to match the Mega Ball as well, otherwise he would have won the $34 million grand prize. Instead of $34 million, Eynon will end up with $172,500 after federal and state taxes. And who better to win that money than an accounting major? Reportedly, Enyon plans to give some of the money to his family and invest the rest. According to the Ohio U. athletic department, the winnings will not affect Eynon's NCAA eligibility. That’s a relief because the boneheads at the NCAA usually have their heads so far up their asses on these issues that suspending a guy just for buying a lottery ticket is something you half expect them to do……
- I used to think George Lucas lived in the state of California. Now I know that he actually lives in a much different, much more distant state: a state of delusion. The erstwhile creator of Star Wars and also a huge part of the Indiana Jones movies clearly dint get the message about how bad the latest installment of the latter movie franchise is. Indiana Jones: Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was a terrible movie and damn near ruined the entire series for many people, yet Lucas is talking like a fifth Indy flick is something he’s seriously considering. Despite Harrison Ford being too old to still pull off the role of brawling, charming action hero/archaeologist, Lucas insists that a fifth Indiana Jones movie is a distinct possibility. One point I will agree with Lucas on is that no one else can fill the role and that when Ford is out, the franchise is as well. Problem is, that time is already here. “He is Indiana Jones. If Indiana Jones isn't in it, you’d have to call it ‘Mutt Williams and the search for Elvis.’” quipped Lucas in a recent interview. Mutt Williams is of course the name of Shia LeBouf’s character in Crystal Skull. No way he or anyone else fills Ford’s shoes. However, at this point in time there’s no way Ford can fill Ford’s shoes either. George Lucas needs top focus on tending to his legions of Star Wars dorks who are breathlessly awaiting Star Wars: The Clone Wars, both the animated movie in theaters next week and the animated series on TNT and Cartoon Network this fall. Heck, Lucas even intends to have a live-action Star Wars show soon, so just let Indiana Jones fade into oblivion and we’ll all agree to forget that Crystal Skull ever happened.
- It may not be soon enough (not when now would be about six years too late), but news that the U.S. and Iraqi governments are nearing a deal that would establish a firm date for withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq is the best news we’ve had since this God-forsaken war started so many years ago. According to Haider Al-Ababdi, a Shiite parliament member of Iraq’s Dawa Party, negotiations are ongoing but a deal is imminent between the two sides. Under the terms of the proposed deal, combat troops would leave Iraq by December 2010, with all other U.S. troops out of the country by the end of 2011. Additionally, troops would pull out of Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009 to remain at their established bases around the country. In other words, they want us the heck out of a place we never should have been to begin with and for some miraculous reason, our leaders are finally listening. Again, our troops leaving today would have been far too late, but at least 2010 and 2011 are sooner than the hundred more years that idiotic geriatric bastard John McCain vowed to stay in Iraq….
- Being a preacher’s wife is a tough spot. You receive a lot of attention because your man is a religious leader, someone who is supposed to uphold high moral and ethical standards at all times. You’re expected to do the same, so it’s a difficult position. That spotlight becomes even brighter when you are co-pastor of a megachurch along with your husband. With that in mind, being the defendant in a lawsuit that alleges you violently assaulted someone on an airplane is probably a bad idea. Such is the plight of Victoria Osteen, wife of well-known televangelist Joel Osteen, he of the ginormous teeth and hair plastered in place so strongly than a nuclear strike couldn’t dislodge it. According to the lawsuit filed by Continental Airlines air waitress Sharon Brown, Victoria Osteen accosted her on a plane prior to takeoff back in 2005. Brown claims that Osteen became enraged about a stain on her first-class seat and came after Brown. Victoria Osteen reportedly threw Brown against a bathroom door and elbowed her in the chest, causing minor injuries. Good play, Vicky. If there’s a stain on your seat in first class, you definitely don’t want to politely ask the flight crew to clean it or to relocate you to a new seat. You don’t want to try and cover it over with a towel or anything; you want to make a bee line to the nearest air waitress and (allegedly) assault her. For the attack, Osteen has already been fined $3,000 by the FAA for interfering with a member of a flight crew. She now faces the suit from Brown, which seeks damages that would amount to 10 percent of Victoria Osteen’s net worth. A steep request, since I’m sure she’s worth more than a million dollars. It’s a greedy demand that I doubt Brown will see all of, but then again, she was on the receiving end of an unprovoked attack from someone who is supposed to be a minister of God. Nice job representing your faith, V.
- Michael Eynon is going to be able to throw a lot of keggers now. As most college students are impoverished schlubs living on ramen noodles and Easy Mac, the Ohio University student is now one of the wealthier students on the Athens, Ohio campus thanks to winning the multistate Mega Millions drawing on the ticket he bought at a Shop Mart in Athens. Eynon, who is also a member of the Ohio University football team, will score a payoff of $250,000 before taxes for matching the lotto’s five numbers correctly. “It hasn't settled in yet,” he said. “I've been out throwing footballs, and it's still the same routine.” That should last as long as it takes his boys to start hitting him up for loans and asking him to pay for the kegs at their next party. The odds of matching five numbers, excluding the Mega Ball, were 1 in 3,904,701. Unfortunately for Eynon, he wasn’t able to match the Mega Ball as well, otherwise he would have won the $34 million grand prize. Instead of $34 million, Eynon will end up with $172,500 after federal and state taxes. And who better to win that money than an accounting major? Reportedly, Enyon plans to give some of the money to his family and invest the rest. According to the Ohio U. athletic department, the winnings will not affect Eynon's NCAA eligibility. That’s a relief because the boneheads at the NCAA usually have their heads so far up their asses on these issues that suspending a guy just for buying a lottery ticket is something you half expect them to do……
Friday, August 08, 2008
Last Comic Standing wraps for the year, point shaving in Toledo again and what our government can do when it works as one
- If there’s one thing I’m tired of in all of sports almost as much as I’m tired of the Brett Favre saga, it’s the continual what-if’s about the future of Cleveland Cavaliers star forward and noted egomaniac LeBron James. Pretty much ever since the moment he was drafted by the Cavs, speculation has been that his ultimate goal is to ball under the bright lights of New York. Now that his good friend Jay-Z is a minority owner with the New Jersey Nets, who will become the Brooklyn Nets in a couple of years, that seems to be the trendy place to predict as LBJ’s next stop. Basketball observers went nuts when James was asked about his favorite cities recently and listed NYC at the top of the list. Never mind that he’s under contract with Cleveland for two more years, let’s up the speculation, dammit! But that speculation took a new (and absurd) twist this week when James responded to reports that Greek pro team Olympiakos would consider signing him when his Cavaliers contract expires. James’ response to that prospect was that he would consider making the leap from the NBA to Greece….if Olympiakos pays him $50 million a year. It’s an absurd statement on so many levels. First, no NBA superstar in his prime is leaving the Association to go ball in relative obscurity in Europe. Yes, several NBAers have made that jump this offseason, but also-ran players like Josh Childress and high schooler Brandon Jennings leaving for Europe is entirely different than one of the NBA’s three best players doing the same. Secondly, no one is paying LBJ $50 million a year to ball, period. His goal of becoming the youngest billionaire in the world will have to come courtesy of endorsement deals and investments, because no one is shelling out that much for him to play basketball. All of that being said….why was there even a need to ask this question in the first place? Who cares about two years down the road? We live in the here, in the now. Sorry to go Debbie Downer on you, but there is no guarantee that James or any of us will still be alive and kicking in two years…..
- Good stoner humor in a movie is tough to pull off. Stoners have subtle psychological and character complexities and depth that not everyone can accurately capture on film. However, when done right, stoner humor can make for a stellar film. Helping to revive the sorely underutilized stoner/action genre are James Franco and Seth Rogen, stars of Pineapple Express. There are fights, car chases and shooting, all with the added comedic value of involving potheads. Rogen is Dale, a process server and avowed stoner who has a bit of Roman Polanski and Woody Allen in him in that he’s dating a high school girl. Franco plays Dale’s dealer, Saul. He delivers a new kind of pot - Pineapple Express the supposed marijuana of the future (like the Dippin’ Dots of hippie lettuce) to Dale, who sparks up while waiting in his car to serve papers on an unsuspecting bad guy. He sees the bad guy (Gary Cole) and a cop buddy kill a man, which would be a big enough problem on its own. However, the bad guys spot Dale and realize he saw them commit the murder. This leads to the main plot of the movie, wherein two paranoid stoners try to evade the bad guys trying to kill them and to do so while stoned. Remember, this is the movie that inspired Franco and Rogen to smoke fake joints during the MTV Movie Awards and forced horrified show producers to cut to wide shots of the auditorium to avoid showing the fake toking up on camera. It’s a really good movie, a funny one with two likeable stoners at the center of the chaos. It’s worth your time and movie money, so give it a shot…..
- Too often, members of our government at all levels are rightly accused of not working together. They don’t cooperate because of partisan politics and personal agendas, but the bottom line is that whatever the reason for their broken relationship, they can’t coexist and cooperate. Thus, it warms my heart when I read about stories like this one, where government officials band together for a common goal - even if that goal is scoring fraudulent prescriptions for painkillers and making money off of the drugs. Seeing 56 government employees - including a police officer, a felony court clerk, two corrections officers and 27 school bus drivers and attendants - arrested in a scam using health insurance information to obtain phony prescriptions for the painkiller OxyContin is a beautiful thing. Sure, these individuals are part of a group of 62 facing charges including racketeering, conspiracy to commit racketeering and grand theft, but don’t let those small details obscure the big picture. Maybe they received 130 illegal prescriptions and 12,000 pills in the process, but at least they were working together. They may have finagled $400,000 worth of illegal OxyContin scrips, but can you really put a price on seeing government employees cutting through the bureaucratic bullsh*t and working together? This plan was years in the making, with six “recruiters” enlisting the first few members of the scam. Those recruits then received OxyContin from another member of the scam who is a doctor. The pills were then sold to another member of the scam, with the recruits asking their insurance companies for reimbursement for the pills they had obtained. It sounds complicated and it is pretty detailed, but I’m choosing to look past that and see this for the positive development that it is, proof that our government officials can get on the same page….
- Tracking down the season finale of Last Comic Standing was a major chore because of freaking preseason football. Yes, games that don’t count like my hometown Cleveland Browns clogged up the airwaves and pushed LSC to freaking 3 a.m. That’s what they make TiVo for, though. I got to see my fave for the season, Iliza Shlesinger, take home the win over some other really funny comics - and Jim Tavare. That guy and his comedy with a cello lost me about two seconds before he started. I also didn’t need a performance by last season’s winner, Jeff Peel, or Jon Lovitz, who I have come to abhor in every sense of the word. His voice, his schtik - they’re no good. But at least the right person won this season, even though she was the only female in the final six. So congrats to Iliza on the win, she may be the only truly funny and really pretty female comic I’ve seen in a long time, so she should be all right….
- Toledo, Ohio as the gambling and game-fixing capita of America. Can’t say I saw that coming, but the more evidence pours in, the harder it becomes to dispute that reality. Less than a year after former University of Toledo football player Scooter McDougle was indicted in a gambling and point-shaving scandal, former UT basketball player Sammy Villegas has been indicted on his own set of such charges. According to a federal bill of information filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit this week, Villegas shaved points during the 2004-05 and 2005-06 seasons, his final two on the team. He also allegedly paid another player to help him shave points, although that player wasn’t named in the bill of information. Villegas has been charged with conspiracy to influence sports contests by bribery, a serious federal offense and one that could send him to prison for a significant amount of time. He is alleged to have received cash and gifts in order to affect the final score of games against the spread. The point shaving came in instances like the one where he intentionally missed two free throws during a game against Central Michigan on February 4, 2006. For the sake of college basketball, my favorite sport to follow, I sincerely hope this isn't true. Unfortunately, the feds don’t indict unless they have an ironclad case, so my gut tells me that Sammy Villegas is screwed. Either he cuts a deal and rats out the other involved parties in the case or he’s looking at a conviction and a nice federal prison sentence….
- Good stoner humor in a movie is tough to pull off. Stoners have subtle psychological and character complexities and depth that not everyone can accurately capture on film. However, when done right, stoner humor can make for a stellar film. Helping to revive the sorely underutilized stoner/action genre are James Franco and Seth Rogen, stars of Pineapple Express. There are fights, car chases and shooting, all with the added comedic value of involving potheads. Rogen is Dale, a process server and avowed stoner who has a bit of Roman Polanski and Woody Allen in him in that he’s dating a high school girl. Franco plays Dale’s dealer, Saul. He delivers a new kind of pot - Pineapple Express the supposed marijuana of the future (like the Dippin’ Dots of hippie lettuce) to Dale, who sparks up while waiting in his car to serve papers on an unsuspecting bad guy. He sees the bad guy (Gary Cole) and a cop buddy kill a man, which would be a big enough problem on its own. However, the bad guys spot Dale and realize he saw them commit the murder. This leads to the main plot of the movie, wherein two paranoid stoners try to evade the bad guys trying to kill them and to do so while stoned. Remember, this is the movie that inspired Franco and Rogen to smoke fake joints during the MTV Movie Awards and forced horrified show producers to cut to wide shots of the auditorium to avoid showing the fake toking up on camera. It’s a really good movie, a funny one with two likeable stoners at the center of the chaos. It’s worth your time and movie money, so give it a shot…..
- Too often, members of our government at all levels are rightly accused of not working together. They don’t cooperate because of partisan politics and personal agendas, but the bottom line is that whatever the reason for their broken relationship, they can’t coexist and cooperate. Thus, it warms my heart when I read about stories like this one, where government officials band together for a common goal - even if that goal is scoring fraudulent prescriptions for painkillers and making money off of the drugs. Seeing 56 government employees - including a police officer, a felony court clerk, two corrections officers and 27 school bus drivers and attendants - arrested in a scam using health insurance information to obtain phony prescriptions for the painkiller OxyContin is a beautiful thing. Sure, these individuals are part of a group of 62 facing charges including racketeering, conspiracy to commit racketeering and grand theft, but don’t let those small details obscure the big picture. Maybe they received 130 illegal prescriptions and 12,000 pills in the process, but at least they were working together. They may have finagled $400,000 worth of illegal OxyContin scrips, but can you really put a price on seeing government employees cutting through the bureaucratic bullsh*t and working together? This plan was years in the making, with six “recruiters” enlisting the first few members of the scam. Those recruits then received OxyContin from another member of the scam who is a doctor. The pills were then sold to another member of the scam, with the recruits asking their insurance companies for reimbursement for the pills they had obtained. It sounds complicated and it is pretty detailed, but I’m choosing to look past that and see this for the positive development that it is, proof that our government officials can get on the same page….
- Tracking down the season finale of Last Comic Standing was a major chore because of freaking preseason football. Yes, games that don’t count like my hometown Cleveland Browns clogged up the airwaves and pushed LSC to freaking 3 a.m. That’s what they make TiVo for, though. I got to see my fave for the season, Iliza Shlesinger, take home the win over some other really funny comics - and Jim Tavare. That guy and his comedy with a cello lost me about two seconds before he started. I also didn’t need a performance by last season’s winner, Jeff Peel, or Jon Lovitz, who I have come to abhor in every sense of the word. His voice, his schtik - they’re no good. But at least the right person won this season, even though she was the only female in the final six. So congrats to Iliza on the win, she may be the only truly funny and really pretty female comic I’ve seen in a long time, so she should be all right….
- Toledo, Ohio as the gambling and game-fixing capita of America. Can’t say I saw that coming, but the more evidence pours in, the harder it becomes to dispute that reality. Less than a year after former University of Toledo football player Scooter McDougle was indicted in a gambling and point-shaving scandal, former UT basketball player Sammy Villegas has been indicted on his own set of such charges. According to a federal bill of information filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit this week, Villegas shaved points during the 2004-05 and 2005-06 seasons, his final two on the team. He also allegedly paid another player to help him shave points, although that player wasn’t named in the bill of information. Villegas has been charged with conspiracy to influence sports contests by bribery, a serious federal offense and one that could send him to prison for a significant amount of time. He is alleged to have received cash and gifts in order to affect the final score of games against the spread. The point shaving came in instances like the one where he intentionally missed two free throws during a game against Central Michigan on February 4, 2006. For the sake of college basketball, my favorite sport to follow, I sincerely hope this isn't true. Unfortunately, the feds don’t indict unless they have an ironclad case, so my gut tells me that Sammy Villegas is screwed. Either he cuts a deal and rats out the other involved parties in the case or he’s looking at a conviction and a nice federal prison sentence….
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Why Georgia football is the top Dawgs, the Dark Knight breaks more records and where you can get your very own Taser
- YouTube just might have a useful purpose after all. While posting videos of you and your friends doing stupid stunts on home video, doing cheesy covers of lame songs or filming your beloved pet in the midst of wacky hijinks may seem worthwhile to you, law enforcement officials in New York City may be making use of YouTube-posted clips to investigate three separate cases of police brutality that occurred in the city in the past few weeks. The videos show officers brutally beating civilians with their batons, or in one case, violently knocking a protestor off his bicycle in Times Square. Two of the confrontations were caught on amateur video which was then posted on YouTube. That footage may be used to determine who will face criminal charges - police or civilians. Now I know it’s inconceivable that law enforcement officials in these here United States (cough, Rodney King, cough) would use excessive force (cough, Amadou Diallo, cough), but I’m asking you to suspend your disbelief for a moment and perhaps take the word (or film) of some random dude on the street over that of some portly, doughnut-scarfing New York City cop. It’s a big leap, but try and make it…….
- Wow. I knew the messy showdown between Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers had grown into a conflict of mythical proportions, but I had no idea that it was this serious. Apparently the Packers are so concerned with the potential fallout from squaring off against one of their most legendary (and legendarily selfish and self-centered) players that they felt the need to hire former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer as a consultant. With Favre busy arriving at and leaving Packers camp in a huff, the team hired Fleischer as a consultant, presumably to help them manage the fallout from the saga. You know it’s bad when you’re bringing in former White House press secretaries to smooth things over. Not that Fleischer is an especially noteworthy White House PR honk; he did serve under W., our most inept and incompetent president by a wide margin. Then again, dealing with the never-ending string of debacles brought to bear by this administration almost qualifies you to handle any mess…..
- Have I or have I not been saying for months that we need to make a concerted effort to get Tasers into the hands of more Americans? If I haven’t been saying it, I’ve definitely been thinking it, and with good reason. Who among us hasn’t been out on a long road trip and for some reason needed a Taser? Maybe another motorist pissed you off, maybe someone at a rest stop took the last Snickers bar from the vending machine or maybe your kids or spouse are just working your last nerve. In those situations, it would be infinitely helpful to be able to break out your Taser and take care of business. Who knows, maybe pulling it out would send enough of a message that you wouldn’t even have to use it. But you could use it if need be, deliver that nice jolt to someone who is giving you trouble. Thankfully, TravelCenters of America are thinking along those very lines. In addition to offering fuel, hot showers, satellite radio systems and truck repairs to weary travelers, these oases of goodness will now offer travelers a chance to get their Taser on. Taser International and TravelCenters of America are teaming up to sell the products at 163 truck stops nationwide, which is a nice start. I say we expand this so that people everywhere, in every state, county, city and town can purchase their own Taser at the nearest truck stop, rest stop or convenience store. Seriously, what could possibly go wrong with this situation?
- Since when is $43.8 million a bad box office weekend? When you’re The Dark Knight and you’ve been breaking every earnings record in sight, that total is still respectable but it’s a bit of a step down from your previous weekends. That tally was still enough to leave Batman and Co. atop the movie heap, beating out a movie that Dark Knight is a thousand times better than, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. That crap-fest raked in an undeserved $42.4 million despite bad writing and terrible acting. Coming in third was Will Ferrell’s new comedy Step Brothers with $16.3 million, followed by Mamma Mia! ($13.1 million) and Journey to the Center of the Earth ($6.8 million). Incidentally, Dark Knight hit a domestic earnings total of $396 million, meaning it will have broken the $400 million mark by the time this week ends. Hopefully this upward trajectory in the earnings standings will catapult it past four of the worst hours of my life, Titanic, and into the top spot for all-time earnings by a movie….
- I have a college football prediction that’s virtually ironclad. The Georgia Bulldogs, currently the No. 1 team in the nation courtesy of the preseason polls, will not only stay there but will become one of college football’s elite programs for years to come. At this point, you’re probably figuring I’ve scoured the preseason college football magazines, researched the Bulldogs’ schedule, broken down their returning starters and evaluated their offensive scheme for this season. You’d be wrong. I have been poring over a lot of data and research on the Bulldogs, but it there were no scouting reports or schedules involved. No, my research was heavy on one thing: police reports. As any elite college football program worth its salt knows, if you want to be the best, you had better stock your roster with as many shady characters with criminal tendencies as possible. You don’t want murderers or sexual offenders, but a nice mix of assaulters, underage drinkers, thieves and cheaters will do. In short, you need players like Darius Dewberry, who on Monday became the sixth Georgia football player suspended for part of the 2008 season. Georgia coach Mark Richt made the announcement at the Bulldogs' preseason news conference, but at the rate he’s going with these suspensions he should just write out an official statement, leave the name blank and fill it in when the offense happens. Dewberry’s offense is actually a pretty funny one, assuming you’re not a parking lot gate. Dewberry was spotted on a hospital video surveillance breaking a parking lot control arm and kicking over and breaking four plant container pots at St. Mary's Hospital early Saturday morning. He left the scene that night and was described by police as, “a black male wearing khaki pants,” (a very thorough description, to be sure) and was being sought for criminal damage to property. Fortunately for my man Darius, the hospital is not pursuing charges after he agreed to pay for the damages, which were estimated to be about $2,100. He will also pay by being suspended for the first two games, complete 10 days of physical conditioning punishment that will begin at 5:30 a.m., do 20 hours of community service and undergo counseling. He has plenty of company on the police blotter from his teammates. Safety Donavon Baldwin and long snapper Jeff Henson were suspended for alcohol-related offenses during the weekend. Eight players have been arrested by police in 2008, although charges against one were thrown out. Eight is not a number you want in the “Arrest” column. The All-American column, yes, arrests no. Let’s shoot for double-digits, Georgia players. I know you have it in you….
- Wow. I knew the messy showdown between Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers had grown into a conflict of mythical proportions, but I had no idea that it was this serious. Apparently the Packers are so concerned with the potential fallout from squaring off against one of their most legendary (and legendarily selfish and self-centered) players that they felt the need to hire former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer as a consultant. With Favre busy arriving at and leaving Packers camp in a huff, the team hired Fleischer as a consultant, presumably to help them manage the fallout from the saga. You know it’s bad when you’re bringing in former White House press secretaries to smooth things over. Not that Fleischer is an especially noteworthy White House PR honk; he did serve under W., our most inept and incompetent president by a wide margin. Then again, dealing with the never-ending string of debacles brought to bear by this administration almost qualifies you to handle any mess…..
- Have I or have I not been saying for months that we need to make a concerted effort to get Tasers into the hands of more Americans? If I haven’t been saying it, I’ve definitely been thinking it, and with good reason. Who among us hasn’t been out on a long road trip and for some reason needed a Taser? Maybe another motorist pissed you off, maybe someone at a rest stop took the last Snickers bar from the vending machine or maybe your kids or spouse are just working your last nerve. In those situations, it would be infinitely helpful to be able to break out your Taser and take care of business. Who knows, maybe pulling it out would send enough of a message that you wouldn’t even have to use it. But you could use it if need be, deliver that nice jolt to someone who is giving you trouble. Thankfully, TravelCenters of America are thinking along those very lines. In addition to offering fuel, hot showers, satellite radio systems and truck repairs to weary travelers, these oases of goodness will now offer travelers a chance to get their Taser on. Taser International and TravelCenters of America are teaming up to sell the products at 163 truck stops nationwide, which is a nice start. I say we expand this so that people everywhere, in every state, county, city and town can purchase their own Taser at the nearest truck stop, rest stop or convenience store. Seriously, what could possibly go wrong with this situation?
- Since when is $43.8 million a bad box office weekend? When you’re The Dark Knight and you’ve been breaking every earnings record in sight, that total is still respectable but it’s a bit of a step down from your previous weekends. That tally was still enough to leave Batman and Co. atop the movie heap, beating out a movie that Dark Knight is a thousand times better than, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. That crap-fest raked in an undeserved $42.4 million despite bad writing and terrible acting. Coming in third was Will Ferrell’s new comedy Step Brothers with $16.3 million, followed by Mamma Mia! ($13.1 million) and Journey to the Center of the Earth ($6.8 million). Incidentally, Dark Knight hit a domestic earnings total of $396 million, meaning it will have broken the $400 million mark by the time this week ends. Hopefully this upward trajectory in the earnings standings will catapult it past four of the worst hours of my life, Titanic, and into the top spot for all-time earnings by a movie….
- I have a college football prediction that’s virtually ironclad. The Georgia Bulldogs, currently the No. 1 team in the nation courtesy of the preseason polls, will not only stay there but will become one of college football’s elite programs for years to come. At this point, you’re probably figuring I’ve scoured the preseason college football magazines, researched the Bulldogs’ schedule, broken down their returning starters and evaluated their offensive scheme for this season. You’d be wrong. I have been poring over a lot of data and research on the Bulldogs, but it there were no scouting reports or schedules involved. No, my research was heavy on one thing: police reports. As any elite college football program worth its salt knows, if you want to be the best, you had better stock your roster with as many shady characters with criminal tendencies as possible. You don’t want murderers or sexual offenders, but a nice mix of assaulters, underage drinkers, thieves and cheaters will do. In short, you need players like Darius Dewberry, who on Monday became the sixth Georgia football player suspended for part of the 2008 season. Georgia coach Mark Richt made the announcement at the Bulldogs' preseason news conference, but at the rate he’s going with these suspensions he should just write out an official statement, leave the name blank and fill it in when the offense happens. Dewberry’s offense is actually a pretty funny one, assuming you’re not a parking lot gate. Dewberry was spotted on a hospital video surveillance breaking a parking lot control arm and kicking over and breaking four plant container pots at St. Mary's Hospital early Saturday morning. He left the scene that night and was described by police as, “a black male wearing khaki pants,” (a very thorough description, to be sure) and was being sought for criminal damage to property. Fortunately for my man Darius, the hospital is not pursuing charges after he agreed to pay for the damages, which were estimated to be about $2,100. He will also pay by being suspended for the first two games, complete 10 days of physical conditioning punishment that will begin at 5:30 a.m., do 20 hours of community service and undergo counseling. He has plenty of company on the police blotter from his teammates. Safety Donavon Baldwin and long snapper Jeff Henson were suspended for alcohol-related offenses during the weekend. Eight players have been arrested by police in 2008, although charges against one were thrown out. Eight is not a number you want in the “Arrest” column. The All-American column, yes, arrests no. Let’s shoot for double-digits, Georgia players. I know you have it in you….
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Drug stings bum me out, an amazing alkie and Steve Smith goes ghetto
- In the most amazing development since drugs were found on Willie Nelson’s tour bus, Texas state troopers busted two men for possession of marijuana on board Snoop Dogg’s tour bus late last week. Ethan Calhoun, 27, and Kevin Barkey, 26, were charged with misdemeanor possession after police pulled the bus over because of an expired registration sticker. Ironically, the pair are the same ages as two women arrested last week for getting drunk, disrupting a flight from Greece to Manchester, England and brawling with flight attendants. Must be something about tandems of drunk/stoned people ages 26 and 27, they just love getting arrested together I suppose. Calhoun and Barkey were each freed after posting a $1,500 bond, but Snoop Dogg wasn’t arrested during the stop. The incident took place in Corsicana, Texas on Interstate 45, with Snoop and his crew making their way from one tour stop to another. Call me cynical, but I have to believe that Snoop not getting arrested for marijuana possession doesn’t mean he wasn’t getting high with the others, it just means he didn’t have Snoop not getting arrested for marijuana possession doesn’t mean he wasn’t getting high with the others, it just means he was able to pass his weed off to someone in his crew before the cops came on board, er, um, he didn’t have the drugs in his hands at the time of the incident. Bad music from American Karaoke, insane antics from Manny Ramirez and massive quantities of pot on Snoop Dogg’s tour bus….all things you can always count on in life.
- Fantasy football dorks, you have my deepest sympathies. One of the top wide receivers in all of fantasy football or real-life, on-field football is going to miss the first two games of the season because he just couldn’t keep himself from breaking a teammate’s face. Carolina Panthers wideout Steve Smith is a mighty mite, a 5-foot-9 fireball who has succeeded in the NFL and become one of the league’s best receivers despite his size, has been suspended for his team’s first two regular season games after punching teammate Ken Lucas in the face during a brawl in practice. Smith has a history of violent incidents, despite trying to renovate his image in recent years. In 2002, he punched another teammate in the face during a film session. This time, he and Lucas got into a fight at practice and Smith ended things with a blast to the face that broke Lucas’ nose. There is no video of the fight, so there’s no way to verify who started it or what transpired. However, the fact that the Panthers suspended their best player for two games and handed down no punishment to Lucas should serve as evidence that they place most of the blame on Smith. For his part, Smith has apologized to his coaches, teammates and fans, but I just don’t think it’s enough. While players often scuffle in training camp because it’s hot, practices are long and they’re tired, sweaty and sore, this is entirely different. This fight took place when action wasn’t going on, when both combatants had their helmets off. You can’t go around cold-cocking teammates because they piss you off. It might be the NFL, a unique workplace where physical aggression is part of the game, but this had nothing to do with playing that game. This is you not being able to control your temper and doing serious, intentional physical harm to a teammate that is borderline criminal. So you fantasy football dorks will just have to live with the fact that if you draft Smith, you won't have him in your lineup for the first two weeks of the season. Draft accordingly and hey, Smith might even slide a round or two lower in your draft because of the suspension, allowing you to get him at a bargain price….
- Stanley Kobierowski - dangerous, reckless criminal, medical marvel or world’s biggest alcoholic? The answer might be a little of all three, given the fact that Kobierowski is now on trial for a drunk driving arrest in which he is alleged to have sported a blood-alcohol content more than six times the legal limit. Something to admire about Kobierowski - if you can admire anything about a drunk driver - is that dude had the testicular fortitude to plead not guilty after registering a blood-alcohol level of .491 in a roadside test after being pulled over. You’re that drunk and you can stand up in court and say you’re not guilty, that takes guts and then some. According to the law enforcement officials involved in Kobierowski’s case, he has likely established a new record for the highest BAC without dying, which is something to hang your hat on. He’d be a hit at frat parties, a traveling freak show who could pound an entire 12-pack by himself and still drive - if he weren’t on his way to jail, that is. Maybe what you get out, look me up, Stanley, and we might be able to work something out. Just promise that you’ll let me do the driving….
- Don’t you just love it when quasi-famous people act like they actually matter and are A-list celebs? Me too. That’s why I was happy to see that Nikki Blonsky (who?), one of the stars of the movie version of Hairspray, was involved in an airport brawl with former America’s Next Top Runway Bimbo, er, Model contestant Bianca Golden (double who?). The fight took place at the Providenciales International Airport in the Turks and Caicos region of the Caribbean. The genesis of the brawl was Blonsky “holding” five seats for her family in the departure lounge, seats Golden wanted to use. That is annoying, the jerk who is holding a big block of seats in a movie theater or other public place, blocking people who need them from making use of them. If your friends or family can’t show up in a timely fashion, they don’t deserve a seat. That being said, getting into a catfight with a fellow passenger over the saved seats is something you’re not getting away with not if your Nikki Blonsky or Bianca Golden. Matt Damon, Russell Crowe or Scarlett Johannson, maybe. Both women ended up in court, charged with assault with actual bodily harm. Blonsky’s father Carl, who can’t show up in time to get his own damn seat but doesn’t seem to have a problem jumping into an ongoing airport lounge fight, was charged with grievous bodily harm for his role in the fight. The charge means that “the victim was injured so severely they needed immediate medical attention.” I think that when the dust settles, the important things to take from this unfortunate incident are 1) realization that you are Nikki Blonsky or Bianca Golden and not an actual celebrity, and 2) a nice vacation memory to laugh about in years ahead. You know, “Remember the time that other quasi-celebrity and I brawled in the airport in the Caribbean and ended up being charged with assault over something as dumb as saved seats?” Good times….
- Dammit, why does this keep happening? Every time I turn around, there’s another story of law enforcement somewhere in the world seizing a massive amount of drugs and putting a dent into an organization responsible for bringing those drugs to the masses. It’s almost as if cops across the globe don’t want these hard-working entrepreneurs whose product of choice just happens to be illegal narcotics and opiates to earn a living. Just this past Friday, police near Barcelona claim to have seized more than 700 pounds of heroin in a sting operation at a sports marina. Five people were arrested in the sting and the drugs seized in the raid have an estimated street value of $84 million. That’s great, Spanish cops, just great. Now the price of heroin is going to go up because the demand is the same and the supply is less. It’s simple economics and you’re ruining the system, you tools. Yes, heroin is one of the most dangerous, addictive and lethal drugs around, but who are you to keep it from those who want it? What, do you not want people OD’ing and/or dying because they took lethal doses of this drug? If I didn’t know better, I’d think you believe that you’re making the world a better place by taking drugs like heroin out of it….
- Fantasy football dorks, you have my deepest sympathies. One of the top wide receivers in all of fantasy football or real-life, on-field football is going to miss the first two games of the season because he just couldn’t keep himself from breaking a teammate’s face. Carolina Panthers wideout Steve Smith is a mighty mite, a 5-foot-9 fireball who has succeeded in the NFL and become one of the league’s best receivers despite his size, has been suspended for his team’s first two regular season games after punching teammate Ken Lucas in the face during a brawl in practice. Smith has a history of violent incidents, despite trying to renovate his image in recent years. In 2002, he punched another teammate in the face during a film session. This time, he and Lucas got into a fight at practice and Smith ended things with a blast to the face that broke Lucas’ nose. There is no video of the fight, so there’s no way to verify who started it or what transpired. However, the fact that the Panthers suspended their best player for two games and handed down no punishment to Lucas should serve as evidence that they place most of the blame on Smith. For his part, Smith has apologized to his coaches, teammates and fans, but I just don’t think it’s enough. While players often scuffle in training camp because it’s hot, practices are long and they’re tired, sweaty and sore, this is entirely different. This fight took place when action wasn’t going on, when both combatants had their helmets off. You can’t go around cold-cocking teammates because they piss you off. It might be the NFL, a unique workplace where physical aggression is part of the game, but this had nothing to do with playing that game. This is you not being able to control your temper and doing serious, intentional physical harm to a teammate that is borderline criminal. So you fantasy football dorks will just have to live with the fact that if you draft Smith, you won't have him in your lineup for the first two weeks of the season. Draft accordingly and hey, Smith might even slide a round or two lower in your draft because of the suspension, allowing you to get him at a bargain price….
- Stanley Kobierowski - dangerous, reckless criminal, medical marvel or world’s biggest alcoholic? The answer might be a little of all three, given the fact that Kobierowski is now on trial for a drunk driving arrest in which he is alleged to have sported a blood-alcohol content more than six times the legal limit. Something to admire about Kobierowski - if you can admire anything about a drunk driver - is that dude had the testicular fortitude to plead not guilty after registering a blood-alcohol level of .491 in a roadside test after being pulled over. You’re that drunk and you can stand up in court and say you’re not guilty, that takes guts and then some. According to the law enforcement officials involved in Kobierowski’s case, he has likely established a new record for the highest BAC without dying, which is something to hang your hat on. He’d be a hit at frat parties, a traveling freak show who could pound an entire 12-pack by himself and still drive - if he weren’t on his way to jail, that is. Maybe what you get out, look me up, Stanley, and we might be able to work something out. Just promise that you’ll let me do the driving….
- Don’t you just love it when quasi-famous people act like they actually matter and are A-list celebs? Me too. That’s why I was happy to see that Nikki Blonsky (who?), one of the stars of the movie version of Hairspray, was involved in an airport brawl with former America’s Next Top Runway Bimbo, er, Model contestant Bianca Golden (double who?). The fight took place at the Providenciales International Airport in the Turks and Caicos region of the Caribbean. The genesis of the brawl was Blonsky “holding” five seats for her family in the departure lounge, seats Golden wanted to use. That is annoying, the jerk who is holding a big block of seats in a movie theater or other public place, blocking people who need them from making use of them. If your friends or family can’t show up in a timely fashion, they don’t deserve a seat. That being said, getting into a catfight with a fellow passenger over the saved seats is something you’re not getting away with not if your Nikki Blonsky or Bianca Golden. Matt Damon, Russell Crowe or Scarlett Johannson, maybe. Both women ended up in court, charged with assault with actual bodily harm. Blonsky’s father Carl, who can’t show up in time to get his own damn seat but doesn’t seem to have a problem jumping into an ongoing airport lounge fight, was charged with grievous bodily harm for his role in the fight. The charge means that “the victim was injured so severely they needed immediate medical attention.” I think that when the dust settles, the important things to take from this unfortunate incident are 1) realization that you are Nikki Blonsky or Bianca Golden and not an actual celebrity, and 2) a nice vacation memory to laugh about in years ahead. You know, “Remember the time that other quasi-celebrity and I brawled in the airport in the Caribbean and ended up being charged with assault over something as dumb as saved seats?” Good times….
- Dammit, why does this keep happening? Every time I turn around, there’s another story of law enforcement somewhere in the world seizing a massive amount of drugs and putting a dent into an organization responsible for bringing those drugs to the masses. It’s almost as if cops across the globe don’t want these hard-working entrepreneurs whose product of choice just happens to be illegal narcotics and opiates to earn a living. Just this past Friday, police near Barcelona claim to have seized more than 700 pounds of heroin in a sting operation at a sports marina. Five people were arrested in the sting and the drugs seized in the raid have an estimated street value of $84 million. That’s great, Spanish cops, just great. Now the price of heroin is going to go up because the demand is the same and the supply is less. It’s simple economics and you’re ruining the system, you tools. Yes, heroin is one of the most dangerous, addictive and lethal drugs around, but who are you to keep it from those who want it? What, do you not want people OD’ing and/or dying because they took lethal doses of this drug? If I didn’t know better, I’d think you believe that you’re making the world a better place by taking drugs like heroin out of it….
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Having an arachnid named after you, getting ripped off even more at Disney World and a leaky toilet does in a corrupt official
- 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….
- 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….
Monday, August 04, 2008
Unlikely environmental heroes, fatty foods get healthier and could spying factor into the Olympics?
¬- Can the drummer of a metal band really save the planet? Probably not, but that’s not going to stop Tommy Lee from trying. Along with providing a roof for ex-wife Pam Anderson as construction on her new mansion is ongoing, T. Lee will be one half of the musical star power driving the new Battleground Earth (Sundays at 10 pm/ET, Planet Green). “It's not your normal thing to go cruising around doing, especially for a guy like me,” Mötley Crüe's party animal drummer admits. He’ll be starring alongside rapper Ludacris in a funny-yet-informative look at ways to save our planet from ourselves. Lee is no stranger to reality TV, having done both NBC's Tommy Lee Goes to College and CBS's Rock Star: Supernova, but this will be a bit different. (A quick aside Tommy Lee Goes to College was awesome, seeing him arrive on campus at the University of Nebraska, try to make the marching band, start a fraternity and hit on the hot girl assigned to tutor him. But I digress.) The show will center on Lee and Ludacris traveling around America, attempting to bring environmental awareness to people in a fun way. They start with small things, like going to restaurants and changed all their light bulbs to fluorescent bulbs and making methane out of cow manure and then barbecuing with it. You all know me, a big environmental honk, someone who actually believes that global warming is real (suck it W!) and who thinks we ought to be working hard to save our planet, so I’m down with this show. I don’t believe I actually have Planet Green on my satellite system, but if you do, tune in and check this show out…..
- When do the Olympics truly begin? It’s a little different for everyone; some people’s Olympic experiences begins with the opening ceremonies, for some people it’s the first event to start and for others it’s the first time their country’s teams or athletes take to the field. For me, I know the Olympics have begun when I hear stories like this one. The Russian received a bit of a setback Thursday when a whopping seven of its female athletes were suspended for doping violations. With just over a week until the official start of the Games, this is a huge hit for the Russian team not just because of the number of athlete involved but also because some of their best runners are included. The most prominent name among the seven suspended athletes is Yelena Soboleva, the world's top performer this year at 800 and 1,500 meters. Joining her is Tatyana Tomashova, who won a silver medal in the 1,500 at the 2004 Athens Olympics. The Russian women were suspended by the IAAF, track and field's world governing body. Their crime? They stand accused of fraudulently using substitute urine in an attempt to pass doping tests. Seriously? That’s what you go with? Bringing in substitute urine? Did you use the Whizz-a-nator or is there a new gadget I haven’t heard of? And as you might expect, throwing athletes were also among the steroid users. Gulfiya Khanafeyeva (hammer throw) and Darya Pishchalnikova (discus) will also miss the Olympics due to their attempted urine switch. What are the odds, two women who need to beef up in order to throw their event’s implement as far as possible are guilty of doping? What’s funny is that the IAAF says it has been investigating the Russian women for more than a year. The organization held onto previous urine samples the women had given and compared them with samples submitted recently. When they didn’t match up, the red flag went up - foul! Now it would be easy to take the hard-line view on this and lament the corruption of sports, but I’m choosing to look for the silver lining here. It just ain’t the Olympics until people start getting busted for steroids and now we have a definitive sign that the Games are underway!
- Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, you have a kindred spirit and she is Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. Kirchnear repeated her call this week to decriminalize personal drug use and put the focus squarely on traffickers and dealers. She says that she doesn't like to “condemn someone who has an addiction.” Frank, you may recall, made a similar plea here in the United States. He wants to decriminalize possession of less than 100 grams of marijuana, a move I also agree with. As you might expect, the squares and conservatives in Argentina oppose this innovative and intelligent new proposal. While a poll shows that only 2 percent of Argentines have tried cocaine, some people believe decriminalization of drugs could result in wider drug use. It’s the same lame argument Americans use against legalizing pot and it doesn’t work in either case. Regardless of the dissent from naysayers, the Argentine government is pushing Congress to pass the decriminalization legislation by the end of the year. Such policies have already been adopted throughout Europe and other parts of Latin America, so it’s not like this is something without precedent. I just hope that Kirchner has more intesetinal fortitude than former Mexican President Vicente Fox, who proposed decriminalizing possession of drugs combined with a crackdown on traffickers during his time in office but a backed down because of a harsh reaction from the W. administration. It’s about time someone started looking out for the low-level, small-time stoners among us and thankfully people like Barney Frank and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner are taking up the fight…..
- Add another concern about the upcoming Olympics in Beijing to the growing list. Right up with polluted, toxic air, algae- and pollution-infested water, horrifically bad traffic, heavily restricted Internet access for the media, bans on reporting from Tiananmen Square, let’s add concerns that the host country might be doing a little espionage on its opponents. Those concerns are based on allegations levied by Danish women’s soccer coach Kenneth Heiner-Muller, who accused the Chinese of attempting to spy on a Danish team meeting during the 2007 Women’s World Cup in China. According to Heiner-Muller, in the days leading up to his team’s opener against China, members of the Danish squad were faced with harassment that ended with two men attempting to secretly videotape a team tactical meeting through a two-way mirror at the team hotel. “Everything was ready (for the meeting), so I just walked a little bit around this rather large room,’ the coach explained. “I went back to the mirrors to look because I was curious. But I got really shocked because there were two guys staring back.” According to Heiner-Muller, the two men were Chinese and they had a video camera in their possession. Not hard to figure out what they were up to, eh? Not too many people are hiding behind two way mirrors in hotel ball rooms when foreign soccer teams are having strategy meetings. Does that mean the Chinese will definitely be cheating and spying later this week when the Olympics start? No. Does it mean that there’s a distinct possibility of those things happening? I’m going with yes…..another international sporting event, one in which the Chinese are determined to do well….just makes sense…..
- For all the slobs out there sitting on your couch, shoving salty snack foods down into your pie hole as quickly as possible, I bring good news. At least one of the foods that you are busy snarfing down is about to get a little healthier - emphasis on little. With recent studies having shown that acrylamide. which has been found in potato chips, causes cancer in lab animals, a lawsuit was brought by the state of California against H.J. Heinz Co., Frito-Lay, Kettle Foods Inc., and Lance Inc. in 2005, alleging they violated a state requirement that companies post warning labels on products with carcinogens. As a result of the suit,
four food manufacturers agreed to reduce levels of the cancer-causing chemical in their potato chips and French fries under a settlement announced Friday by the state attorney general's office. Additionally, the companies avoided trial by agreeing to pay a combined $3 million in fines along with reducing the levels of acrylamide in their products over three years. “Other companies should follow this lead,” Attorney General Jerry Brown said. He also labeled the settlement “a victory for public health.” Well, either companies should follow this example or Americans should stop eating crap like French fries and potato chips in such massive quantities, but whatever. If the cancer-causing chemicals don’t get you, the boatloads of cholesterol and fat will. Apparently acrylamide forms naturally when starchy foods are baked or fried. Studies have shown that it causes cancer in lab animals and nerve damage to workers who are exposed to high levels. The modified snacks will be available nationwide, so that’s something to look forward to…..I guess. Companies involved in the case include: Frito-Lay (paying $1.5 million in the settlement) chip-maker Kettle Foods ($350,000), Heinz ($600,000) and Lance ($95,000). The state also sued McDonald's Corp.; Wendy's International Inc.; Burger King Corp.; KFC, a subsidiary of Yum Brands Inc.; and Procter & Gamble Co. over acrylamide levels in 2005, but those lawsuits were settled when the companies agreed to either properly label their products or lower levels of the chemical. Maybe it’s just me, but there seem to be far too many negatives to eating this kind of crap. I think I’ll stick with the healthier side of the food ledger…..
- When do the Olympics truly begin? It’s a little different for everyone; some people’s Olympic experiences begins with the opening ceremonies, for some people it’s the first event to start and for others it’s the first time their country’s teams or athletes take to the field. For me, I know the Olympics have begun when I hear stories like this one. The Russian received a bit of a setback Thursday when a whopping seven of its female athletes were suspended for doping violations. With just over a week until the official start of the Games, this is a huge hit for the Russian team not just because of the number of athlete involved but also because some of their best runners are included. The most prominent name among the seven suspended athletes is Yelena Soboleva, the world's top performer this year at 800 and 1,500 meters. Joining her is Tatyana Tomashova, who won a silver medal in the 1,500 at the 2004 Athens Olympics. The Russian women were suspended by the IAAF, track and field's world governing body. Their crime? They stand accused of fraudulently using substitute urine in an attempt to pass doping tests. Seriously? That’s what you go with? Bringing in substitute urine? Did you use the Whizz-a-nator or is there a new gadget I haven’t heard of? And as you might expect, throwing athletes were also among the steroid users. Gulfiya Khanafeyeva (hammer throw) and Darya Pishchalnikova (discus) will also miss the Olympics due to their attempted urine switch. What are the odds, two women who need to beef up in order to throw their event’s implement as far as possible are guilty of doping? What’s funny is that the IAAF says it has been investigating the Russian women for more than a year. The organization held onto previous urine samples the women had given and compared them with samples submitted recently. When they didn’t match up, the red flag went up - foul! Now it would be easy to take the hard-line view on this and lament the corruption of sports, but I’m choosing to look for the silver lining here. It just ain’t the Olympics until people start getting busted for steroids and now we have a definitive sign that the Games are underway!
- Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, you have a kindred spirit and she is Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. Kirchnear repeated her call this week to decriminalize personal drug use and put the focus squarely on traffickers and dealers. She says that she doesn't like to “condemn someone who has an addiction.” Frank, you may recall, made a similar plea here in the United States. He wants to decriminalize possession of less than 100 grams of marijuana, a move I also agree with. As you might expect, the squares and conservatives in Argentina oppose this innovative and intelligent new proposal. While a poll shows that only 2 percent of Argentines have tried cocaine, some people believe decriminalization of drugs could result in wider drug use. It’s the same lame argument Americans use against legalizing pot and it doesn’t work in either case. Regardless of the dissent from naysayers, the Argentine government is pushing Congress to pass the decriminalization legislation by the end of the year. Such policies have already been adopted throughout Europe and other parts of Latin America, so it’s not like this is something without precedent. I just hope that Kirchner has more intesetinal fortitude than former Mexican President Vicente Fox, who proposed decriminalizing possession of drugs combined with a crackdown on traffickers during his time in office but a backed down because of a harsh reaction from the W. administration. It’s about time someone started looking out for the low-level, small-time stoners among us and thankfully people like Barney Frank and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner are taking up the fight…..
- Add another concern about the upcoming Olympics in Beijing to the growing list. Right up with polluted, toxic air, algae- and pollution-infested water, horrifically bad traffic, heavily restricted Internet access for the media, bans on reporting from Tiananmen Square, let’s add concerns that the host country might be doing a little espionage on its opponents. Those concerns are based on allegations levied by Danish women’s soccer coach Kenneth Heiner-Muller, who accused the Chinese of attempting to spy on a Danish team meeting during the 2007 Women’s World Cup in China. According to Heiner-Muller, in the days leading up to his team’s opener against China, members of the Danish squad were faced with harassment that ended with two men attempting to secretly videotape a team tactical meeting through a two-way mirror at the team hotel. “Everything was ready (for the meeting), so I just walked a little bit around this rather large room,’ the coach explained. “I went back to the mirrors to look because I was curious. But I got really shocked because there were two guys staring back.” According to Heiner-Muller, the two men were Chinese and they had a video camera in their possession. Not hard to figure out what they were up to, eh? Not too many people are hiding behind two way mirrors in hotel ball rooms when foreign soccer teams are having strategy meetings. Does that mean the Chinese will definitely be cheating and spying later this week when the Olympics start? No. Does it mean that there’s a distinct possibility of those things happening? I’m going with yes…..another international sporting event, one in which the Chinese are determined to do well….just makes sense…..
- For all the slobs out there sitting on your couch, shoving salty snack foods down into your pie hole as quickly as possible, I bring good news. At least one of the foods that you are busy snarfing down is about to get a little healthier - emphasis on little. With recent studies having shown that acrylamide. which has been found in potato chips, causes cancer in lab animals, a lawsuit was brought by the state of California against H.J. Heinz Co., Frito-Lay, Kettle Foods Inc., and Lance Inc. in 2005, alleging they violated a state requirement that companies post warning labels on products with carcinogens. As a result of the suit,
four food manufacturers agreed to reduce levels of the cancer-causing chemical in their potato chips and French fries under a settlement announced Friday by the state attorney general's office. Additionally, the companies avoided trial by agreeing to pay a combined $3 million in fines along with reducing the levels of acrylamide in their products over three years. “Other companies should follow this lead,” Attorney General Jerry Brown said. He also labeled the settlement “a victory for public health.” Well, either companies should follow this example or Americans should stop eating crap like French fries and potato chips in such massive quantities, but whatever. If the cancer-causing chemicals don’t get you, the boatloads of cholesterol and fat will. Apparently acrylamide forms naturally when starchy foods are baked or fried. Studies have shown that it causes cancer in lab animals and nerve damage to workers who are exposed to high levels. The modified snacks will be available nationwide, so that’s something to look forward to…..I guess. Companies involved in the case include: Frito-Lay (paying $1.5 million in the settlement) chip-maker Kettle Foods ($350,000), Heinz ($600,000) and Lance ($95,000). The state also sued McDonald's Corp.; Wendy's International Inc.; Burger King Corp.; KFC, a subsidiary of Yum Brands Inc.; and Procter & Gamble Co. over acrylamide levels in 2005, but those lawsuits were settled when the companies agreed to either properly label their products or lower levels of the chemical. Maybe it’s just me, but there seem to be far too many negatives to eating this kind of crap. I think I’ll stick with the healthier side of the food ledger…..
Sunday, August 03, 2008
The U.S. Open lost its appeal, "The Mummy" more of a bad thing and Cheech and Chong reunite
- Pass the bong and pound a beer, good times are here again! Everyone’s favorite stoners, Cheech and Chong, are going forward with plans to reunite for their first comedy tour together in more than 25 years. Cheech Marin said in an interview that he and Tommy Chong were talking and realized that, “If we’re going to do anything, it has to be now.” The pair broke up as a comedy team over creative differences but now are reuniting in the hopes of earning a few more dollars while at least a few people still recognize them. They’re banking on dope humor still being as popular now as it was back in the ‘70s, which I would say is a safe bet. There were potheads back then, there are potheads now and their likes and dislikes haven’t changed all that much. The stoners of today may not know much about who Cheech and Chong are, but then again, they’re stoners so their entertainment standards aren't all that high…..
- I’ve never gotten the practice of buying crap that used to belong to famous people. Never have, never will. I don’t need Tiger Woods’ discarded apple core, a jacket that used to belong to a famous musician or a glove that a hall of fame baseball player once used. You won't find me at any auction, making a bid on the ginormous granny panties formerly belonging to England’s Queen Victoria that one anonymous Canadian bidder picked up at an auction in central England. The bloomers, with a massive 50-inch waist (push away from the dinner table, Queen), went for $9,000, or $9,001 more than they should cost. Owning someone else’s used drawers is just nasty. I don’t care if they’re from one of the current hottest women on the planet, someone like Scarlett Johannson, it’s just disgusting. Other people’s underwear should either be worn by them or thrown away and left in the trash if the garments are worn out. There is a mild bizarro factor here because Queen Victoria was only 5 feet tall and still rocked that 50-inch waistband, but even that’s not enough to override the gross-out factor. I don’t care that she passed away in 1901 and her clothes have had a long time to just sit and detox, they’re still someone else’s underwear. Stop bidding on these kids of items, idiots. Are you seriously telling me you’re going to display those in your home, maybe point them out to people who visit? Yeah, those will be a real conversation piece, you tool…..
- Boy, that escalated quickly. I mean, it really got out of hand. It escalated. It did, didn’t it? In a move I just didn’t see coming, the ManRam era in Boston is officially over. Manny Ramirez was traded Thursday shortly before Major League Baseball’s non-waiver trading deadline. Sure, Manny and the Red Sox were at each other’s throats, but that was nothing new. Manny was openly inviting a trade and doing everything possible to antagonize the organization, but it was nothing we hadn’t seen every year he’d been in Boston. Yet ManRam has been shipped off to the Los Angeles Dodgers in a three-team trade that will bring All-Star outfielder Jason Bay to Boston from Pittsburgh to replace Manny. Apparently the tipping point for the trade was a meeting that Boston general manager Theo Epstein had with some of the team’s veterans after Wednesday night’s game in which the players expressed their feelings that Manny could not be counted on to give his best effort anymore and had to go. Again, I’m floored by this trade. Because we’d been down this road so many times and seen so many idle threats from both sides, I just became calloused to the whole saga. I figured this was one more time around the same track, one last back-and-forth before Manny left the team at year’s end via free agency. Now, he’s plying his trade in sunny SoCal and the Red Sox will try to win another World Series without Manny being Manny in left field. Something tells me they’re going to fall short….
- Universal Studios went to the well one too many times. Even if you’re working with a great, storied movie franchise, there comes a point when the next sequel is one too many. Unfortunately for Universal and director Rob Cohen, the “Mummy” movies are neither great nor storied and so coming back for a third installment turns out to be a huge mistake. “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” features actors of questionable ability, like Brendan Fraser and Jet Li, plus some clumsily done CGI effects, mediocre writing and a predictable plot that offers few twists and not nearly enough to justify paying $10 to see this film. A change in venue from Egypt, setting for the first two movies in the series, to China does little to inject life into the plot. Fraser is back as Rick O’Connell, brash explorer who has retired to an English estate with his wife. The time frame is a couple of years post-WWII, but O’Connell can't stay retired when his now-adult son Alex uncovers a historical tomb in China and faces off against an immortal warlord from the time of the Great Wall (Jet Li). For much of the movie, you feel like you’re watching a cheap knockoff of an “Indiana Jones” movie, only with stiffer, more rigid dialogue and even less convincing acting. Even in the world of action movies, where plot and believability are often sacrificed in the name of raw energy, “Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” is a dud of significant proportions. Avoid it if at all possible….
- At least this time I won't bother wasting any time or energy on a tennis tournament that ends up being a total waste of time. For Wimbledon this year, I got myself all psyched up to watch my girl Maria Sharapova compete as one of the top seeds and hopefully win the tournament so I could see her play as many matches as possible. Unfortunately, she was bounced in the early rounds of the event and all of that invested time and effort went for naught. So as I look ahead and see that Sharapova will be competing in neither the Beijing Olympics nor U.S. Open, I’m going to try and find a silver lining. Yes, there will be zero chances to see her and her amazing, never-ending legs in action, but at least I know that going in. I won't put any effort into following the women’s side of the U.S. Open or Olympic events because I have no desire to see those two she-men, the Williams sisters, running around with their bulging biceps and grunting nonstop. With Sharapova, her three Grand Slam titles and No. 3 world ranking sidelined following an MRI that revealed two small tears in tendons in her right shoulder, I can focus on other parts of the sporting landscape. “After yesterday's match, I knew there was something seriously wrong with my shoulder,” Sharapova said in a posting on her Web site. She has been bothered off-and-on by her right shoulder for some time and pulled out of a tournament in March because of it. “This is something that needs a lot of time to heal," she wrote on the site Thursday. Take your time, Maria, we all want you healthy and on the court as soon as possible. In the meantime, don’t be a stranger….
- I’ve never gotten the practice of buying crap that used to belong to famous people. Never have, never will. I don’t need Tiger Woods’ discarded apple core, a jacket that used to belong to a famous musician or a glove that a hall of fame baseball player once used. You won't find me at any auction, making a bid on the ginormous granny panties formerly belonging to England’s Queen Victoria that one anonymous Canadian bidder picked up at an auction in central England. The bloomers, with a massive 50-inch waist (push away from the dinner table, Queen), went for $9,000, or $9,001 more than they should cost. Owning someone else’s used drawers is just nasty. I don’t care if they’re from one of the current hottest women on the planet, someone like Scarlett Johannson, it’s just disgusting. Other people’s underwear should either be worn by them or thrown away and left in the trash if the garments are worn out. There is a mild bizarro factor here because Queen Victoria was only 5 feet tall and still rocked that 50-inch waistband, but even that’s not enough to override the gross-out factor. I don’t care that she passed away in 1901 and her clothes have had a long time to just sit and detox, they’re still someone else’s underwear. Stop bidding on these kids of items, idiots. Are you seriously telling me you’re going to display those in your home, maybe point them out to people who visit? Yeah, those will be a real conversation piece, you tool…..
- Boy, that escalated quickly. I mean, it really got out of hand. It escalated. It did, didn’t it? In a move I just didn’t see coming, the ManRam era in Boston is officially over. Manny Ramirez was traded Thursday shortly before Major League Baseball’s non-waiver trading deadline. Sure, Manny and the Red Sox were at each other’s throats, but that was nothing new. Manny was openly inviting a trade and doing everything possible to antagonize the organization, but it was nothing we hadn’t seen every year he’d been in Boston. Yet ManRam has been shipped off to the Los Angeles Dodgers in a three-team trade that will bring All-Star outfielder Jason Bay to Boston from Pittsburgh to replace Manny. Apparently the tipping point for the trade was a meeting that Boston general manager Theo Epstein had with some of the team’s veterans after Wednesday night’s game in which the players expressed their feelings that Manny could not be counted on to give his best effort anymore and had to go. Again, I’m floored by this trade. Because we’d been down this road so many times and seen so many idle threats from both sides, I just became calloused to the whole saga. I figured this was one more time around the same track, one last back-and-forth before Manny left the team at year’s end via free agency. Now, he’s plying his trade in sunny SoCal and the Red Sox will try to win another World Series without Manny being Manny in left field. Something tells me they’re going to fall short….
- Universal Studios went to the well one too many times. Even if you’re working with a great, storied movie franchise, there comes a point when the next sequel is one too many. Unfortunately for Universal and director Rob Cohen, the “Mummy” movies are neither great nor storied and so coming back for a third installment turns out to be a huge mistake. “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” features actors of questionable ability, like Brendan Fraser and Jet Li, plus some clumsily done CGI effects, mediocre writing and a predictable plot that offers few twists and not nearly enough to justify paying $10 to see this film. A change in venue from Egypt, setting for the first two movies in the series, to China does little to inject life into the plot. Fraser is back as Rick O’Connell, brash explorer who has retired to an English estate with his wife. The time frame is a couple of years post-WWII, but O’Connell can't stay retired when his now-adult son Alex uncovers a historical tomb in China and faces off against an immortal warlord from the time of the Great Wall (Jet Li). For much of the movie, you feel like you’re watching a cheap knockoff of an “Indiana Jones” movie, only with stiffer, more rigid dialogue and even less convincing acting. Even in the world of action movies, where plot and believability are often sacrificed in the name of raw energy, “Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” is a dud of significant proportions. Avoid it if at all possible….
- At least this time I won't bother wasting any time or energy on a tennis tournament that ends up being a total waste of time. For Wimbledon this year, I got myself all psyched up to watch my girl Maria Sharapova compete as one of the top seeds and hopefully win the tournament so I could see her play as many matches as possible. Unfortunately, she was bounced in the early rounds of the event and all of that invested time and effort went for naught. So as I look ahead and see that Sharapova will be competing in neither the Beijing Olympics nor U.S. Open, I’m going to try and find a silver lining. Yes, there will be zero chances to see her and her amazing, never-ending legs in action, but at least I know that going in. I won't put any effort into following the women’s side of the U.S. Open or Olympic events because I have no desire to see those two she-men, the Williams sisters, running around with their bulging biceps and grunting nonstop. With Sharapova, her three Grand Slam titles and No. 3 world ranking sidelined following an MRI that revealed two small tears in tendons in her right shoulder, I can focus on other parts of the sporting landscape. “After yesterday's match, I knew there was something seriously wrong with my shoulder,” Sharapova said in a posting on her Web site. She has been bothered off-and-on by her right shoulder for some time and pulled out of a tournament in March because of it. “This is something that needs a lot of time to heal," she wrote on the site Thursday. Take your time, Maria, we all want you healthy and on the court as soon as possible. In the meantime, don’t be a stranger….
Saturday, August 02, 2008
It's X Games time again, celebrity couple names jump the shark and another reason to despise smokers
- I’ve had a lot of fun watching this season of Last Comic Standing, but I still have to say that Thursday night’s episode was seriously f’d up. The final eight comics were in Las Vegas to perform, but there was a caveat: three of them were about to be eliminated. No biggie, you say. All of them perform, then three are eliminated. Seems logical, no? Wrong. See, their performances didn’t have a damn thing to do with who was eliminated. No, that was determined by voting done after last week’s show. In other words, you were watching three people perform who were already eliminated. Basically, they were wasting everyone’s time; they just didn’t know it. Memo to NBC: if someone is eliminated, they’re not part of the show anymore. Why have three people make a totally irrelevant performance? If they knock one out of the park, you’re pissed because they were the best performer of the night and it was all for naught. Plus, host Bill Bellamy also performed - for what? First, he’s not that funny. Sorry Bill, but you’re no Jerry Seinfeld. Second, he’s not competing, nor is this the season finale where you’re pulling out all the stops. But that wasn’t the only hosting issue. I’ve managed to miss this detail because I haven’t seen every episode start to finish, but who the hell picks Fern Cotton as their stage name? Yes, Bellamy’s co-host goes by the name Fern Cotton. She’s this über-hot, leggy blond British woman in impossibly high heels, but what’s with the name? I get that your given name might not be a good fit for your career, but did you just pick a random plant and a fabric and jam them together? What is this, the Brick Tamblin method of picking a stage name? You just pick the first two things you see and bam, there you go? What, was there a fern sitting on the counter in your apartment and was your sweater at the time made of cotton? Again, I love this show and the performances by the competing comics have been great for the most part. I’m just saying that this week’s episode was a stink bomb for the most part….
- Are you happy now, smokers? Not only do you and your cancer sticks harm your own health and the health of anyone unfortunate enough to be in your immediate vicinity or downwind from you, now smoking causes aircraft carrier fires. Check that - smoking causes submarine fires that result in $70 million worth of damages to nuclear-powered aircraft carriers docked in major American cities. Naval officials revealed Wednesday that they believe smoking on board the USS George Washington was the cause of a massive fire that decimated the ship. Good, because that’s what you always want to do, light up aboard a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Nothing bad could happen there, mixing a lit cigarette, lots of flammable materials and the nuclear component. So go ahead and add that to the list of things smokers bring to the world, right alongside lung cancer, emphysema, chronic bronchitis, leathery faces, green skin, secondhand smoke, etc. Thanks for that smokers, without you who would we find to wreak $70 million worth of damage to our nation’s aircraft carriers? ‘Nuff said…..
- Evangelists, specifically television evangelists, have gotten a really bad rap. There are good reasons for that, mostly because of gross financial misconduct that invariably includes using monies donated for ministry to buy luxurious homes, cars and boats. However, this is the first time I can remember an evangelist getting himself into trouble for (allegedly) murdering up his wife and jamming her into his freezer. Such is the plight of Anthony Hopkins of Mobile, Alabama. Hopkins was arrested this past weekend as he preached at a church in Mobile and hauled off right in front of the congregation. Nothing like going to church, having the police break through the door mid-sermon and haul away the pastor. “Don’t worry folks, nothing to see here, just go back to learning about the Lord while we arrest the pastor for murdering his wife and keeping her corpse in his freezer.” Arletha Hopkins hadn’t even been reported missing even though no one had heard from her in three years, but someone tipped the police off and they tracked her down, wedged in between the Bomb Pops and frozen steaks. How is anyone missing for three years without someone noticing? Hard to cover for your wife not being around for three years, eh? There are only so many visits to relatives and trips to the Grand Canyon a person can make. Oh, and Anthony Hopkins must have a brass pair if he can go around preaching God’s Word and have his wife whom he killed, shoved in his freezer at home…..
- Everyone has their breaking point, that mark where they’ve had too much and just can't take it anymore. Well, I’ve reached that breaking point…..when it comes to celebrity couple names. You know what I’m talking about; those cutesy, damn annoying mash-ups of the first names of celebrity couples designed to give them a new, unified moniker that is shorter, simpler and will go nicely on the cover of a gossip magazine. I’m not sure where this trend jumped the shark for me, I just know that it’s really pissing me off now. Maybe it was zipping around TVGuide.com and seeing repeated references to “Clois,” the cutesy nickname for the upcoming coupling of Clark Kent and Lois Lane for Season 8 of Smallville. More likely, though, it was when those two attention-and-talent-starved ass-clowns Heidi and Spencer from The Hills were designated as “Speidi.” Are you f’ing kidding me? Those two jackasses are lucky that they’re allowed to have names at all. One is a spoiled, rich kid with spiky, highlighted hair and a bad attitude. The other is a vapid, surgically enhanced, ditzy, aspiring singer with no musical talent. Together, they combined to make quite possibly the worst music video in the history of the world, that for Heidi’s first “single” from her new “album.” I’m using quotes because neither her “song” nor her “album” are good enough to qualify as actual songs or albums. These two are “famous” because they had the fortune of stumbling upon an MTV reality show that lots of kids watch because they’re too young and stupid to know better. But they als symbolize that über-lame trend of having to slap every mildly famous couple with a combo name, a trend that needs to end now. It’s not cool, it’s not cute, it’s not clever….it’s f’ing annoying and it’s so, so tired and played…..
- The X Games are back. During the winter, I watched Winter X and was hooked. The summer version of extreme sports’ Olympics kicked off Thursday night in Los Angeles with some amazing skateboarding action. Skateboard Big Air was the main event for the first night and although I prefer outdoor X events to indoor ones, watching these dudes soar through the air at Staples Center from a freakishly high ramp, make a massive jump and mix in a some amazing tricks before finishing by seeing how high above the ramp they could soar, it was awesome. Bob Burnquist was the winner for the event but there were some truly sick tricks turned in, along with some gnarly spills. I’ve never been 20 feet in the air on a skateboard, watching the world hover below before coming plummeting back down, but I think I’ll leave it to guys like Burnquist. If you’re looking to tune in (and you should be), the Summer X Games will be on ESPN for the next few nights, usually kicking off around 9 p.m. Tune in and see some sick stunts on bikes, skateboards, etc……
- Are you happy now, smokers? Not only do you and your cancer sticks harm your own health and the health of anyone unfortunate enough to be in your immediate vicinity or downwind from you, now smoking causes aircraft carrier fires. Check that - smoking causes submarine fires that result in $70 million worth of damages to nuclear-powered aircraft carriers docked in major American cities. Naval officials revealed Wednesday that they believe smoking on board the USS George Washington was the cause of a massive fire that decimated the ship. Good, because that’s what you always want to do, light up aboard a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Nothing bad could happen there, mixing a lit cigarette, lots of flammable materials and the nuclear component. So go ahead and add that to the list of things smokers bring to the world, right alongside lung cancer, emphysema, chronic bronchitis, leathery faces, green skin, secondhand smoke, etc. Thanks for that smokers, without you who would we find to wreak $70 million worth of damage to our nation’s aircraft carriers? ‘Nuff said…..
- Evangelists, specifically television evangelists, have gotten a really bad rap. There are good reasons for that, mostly because of gross financial misconduct that invariably includes using monies donated for ministry to buy luxurious homes, cars and boats. However, this is the first time I can remember an evangelist getting himself into trouble for (allegedly) murdering up his wife and jamming her into his freezer. Such is the plight of Anthony Hopkins of Mobile, Alabama. Hopkins was arrested this past weekend as he preached at a church in Mobile and hauled off right in front of the congregation. Nothing like going to church, having the police break through the door mid-sermon and haul away the pastor. “Don’t worry folks, nothing to see here, just go back to learning about the Lord while we arrest the pastor for murdering his wife and keeping her corpse in his freezer.” Arletha Hopkins hadn’t even been reported missing even though no one had heard from her in three years, but someone tipped the police off and they tracked her down, wedged in between the Bomb Pops and frozen steaks. How is anyone missing for three years without someone noticing? Hard to cover for your wife not being around for three years, eh? There are only so many visits to relatives and trips to the Grand Canyon a person can make. Oh, and Anthony Hopkins must have a brass pair if he can go around preaching God’s Word and have his wife whom he killed, shoved in his freezer at home…..
- Everyone has their breaking point, that mark where they’ve had too much and just can't take it anymore. Well, I’ve reached that breaking point…..when it comes to celebrity couple names. You know what I’m talking about; those cutesy, damn annoying mash-ups of the first names of celebrity couples designed to give them a new, unified moniker that is shorter, simpler and will go nicely on the cover of a gossip magazine. I’m not sure where this trend jumped the shark for me, I just know that it’s really pissing me off now. Maybe it was zipping around TVGuide.com and seeing repeated references to “Clois,” the cutesy nickname for the upcoming coupling of Clark Kent and Lois Lane for Season 8 of Smallville. More likely, though, it was when those two attention-and-talent-starved ass-clowns Heidi and Spencer from The Hills were designated as “Speidi.” Are you f’ing kidding me? Those two jackasses are lucky that they’re allowed to have names at all. One is a spoiled, rich kid with spiky, highlighted hair and a bad attitude. The other is a vapid, surgically enhanced, ditzy, aspiring singer with no musical talent. Together, they combined to make quite possibly the worst music video in the history of the world, that for Heidi’s first “single” from her new “album.” I’m using quotes because neither her “song” nor her “album” are good enough to qualify as actual songs or albums. These two are “famous” because they had the fortune of stumbling upon an MTV reality show that lots of kids watch because they’re too young and stupid to know better. But they als symbolize that über-lame trend of having to slap every mildly famous couple with a combo name, a trend that needs to end now. It’s not cool, it’s not cute, it’s not clever….it’s f’ing annoying and it’s so, so tired and played…..
- The X Games are back. During the winter, I watched Winter X and was hooked. The summer version of extreme sports’ Olympics kicked off Thursday night in Los Angeles with some amazing skateboarding action. Skateboard Big Air was the main event for the first night and although I prefer outdoor X events to indoor ones, watching these dudes soar through the air at Staples Center from a freakishly high ramp, make a massive jump and mix in a some amazing tricks before finishing by seeing how high above the ramp they could soar, it was awesome. Bob Burnquist was the winner for the event but there were some truly sick tricks turned in, along with some gnarly spills. I’ve never been 20 feet in the air on a skateboard, watching the world hover below before coming plummeting back down, but I think I’ll leave it to guys like Burnquist. If you’re looking to tune in (and you should be), the Summer X Games will be on ESPN for the next few nights, usually kicking off around 9 p.m. Tune in and see some sick stunts on bikes, skateboards, etc……
Friday, August 01, 2008
Video games freaks strike again, China's new pollution plan and a dork-bate rages in London
- Did U.S. District Court judge John D. Bates not get the memo? Everyone else seems to know that all members of the W. administration can trample all over and totally disregard the Constitution at will. Bates appears unconvinced of that fact, as evidence by the 93-page opinion he issued Thursday declaring that Congress can indeed force senior White House aides to testify under subpoena. The focus of this particular case is former White House counsel Harriet Myers, whom the W. administration has argued is exempt from any congressional subpoena as the legislature looks to investigate W.’s illegal firings of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006. Judge Bates wrote in his opinion that this argument “is without any support in case law.” He added that there may still be ways for W. and his cronies to try and weasel out of having to fess up and explain their illegal, unethical actions, but this line of reasoning is not among them. The court rejected the concept that senior White House aides are exempt from subpoenas, so let’s all ready ourselves for the next round of excuses and “misremembering” as the administration looks to skate on some of its more deceitful, despicable maneuvering in a time in office overflowing with such efforts….
- Good thing Wisconsin residents have the Brett Favre hostage crisis to divert their sporting attention. If they couldn’t obsess about No. 4’s battle with the Green Bay Packers to return to the NFL, Wisconsin sports fans would have no choice but to focus on the fact that their team just got b*tch-slapped in a huge four-game series against the rival Chicago Cubs. Going into Sunday’s games, the two teams were tied for the lead in the National League Central Division. The Cubs beat Florida and Milwaukee lost their game, giving the Cubs a one-game leading as they came north to Milwaukee. With the Brewers leading off the series with their two ace pitchers, CC Sabathia and Ben Sheets, everyone figured it would be a hard-fought battle, maybe a split with both teams winning two games. Either that or the Cubs win all four and outscore the Brewers by a 31-11 margin, one or the other. Either the Cubs scratch and claw to leave with the same one-game division lead they entered with or they win by an average of five runs per game in the series and exit Cheese Land with a five-game lead over the Brewers, who have now slipped to third place behind St. Louis. The only game in the series that was close was the first one and that game featured Sabathia, Milwaukee’s top starter, against Ted Lilly, Chicago’s fifth starter. Thanks for showing that you’re still not ready for prime time, Brewers, see if you can pick yourselves up off the mat in time to make the playoffs….
- In case you missed it, a massive dork-bate has been raging in a London court the past few weeks. LucasFilm Inc., George Lucas’ company and the corporate giant in control of the “Star Wars” franchise, filed suit against British prop designer Andrew Ainsworth for selling replica Stormtrooper uniforms on his website. The uniforms are of course one of the most recognizable parts of the “Star Wars” movies, their bright, white fabric and trademark bucket-shaped helmets recognizable to “Star Wars” dorks worldwide and Ainsworth is the one who created the original helmets. LucasFilm sued Ainsworth because it believes that it has exclusive rights to sell and market the Stormtroopers unis. High Court judge Anthony Mann issued a split decision in the case, finding that Ainsworth did violate LucasFilm’s copyright by selling the uniforms on his site but refusing to enforce in Britain a $20 million judgment against Ainsworth in a California court in 2006. The estimated sales from the Stormtrooper uniforms on Ainsworth’s site are between $50,000 and $60,000, so it’s a relatively minor sum. There are still unresolved points in the case in terms of who has what rights in the case, so another hearing will be held later this month to determine the next steps for both sides. Can’t you all just get along, agree that you’re dorks and much richer than you should be and go on with your lives?
- Everyone, great news! The Chinese government has a fantastic new plan to magically solve all of their air and environmental problems in the one week left before the start of the Summer Olympics. Even though an eerily similar plan implemented just over a week ago failed miserably and actually ended up with more pollution in the air instead of less, the Chinese are confident that they have it right this time. Uh huh, sure. The “new” emergency pollution plan will result in 105 factory closings inside the Beijing city limits, 106 factory closings outside the city, a complete halt on all construction projects in the region and further reduction of the number of vehicles allowed on the roads at a given time. All of this will be based on whether forecasters see stagnant weather conditions 48 hours in advance. Confidence in the plan might be higher if not for that fact that just last week, the Chinese Environmental Ministry put similar measures in place, allowing drivers to be on the road on only even or odd-numbered days of the week based on their license plate number. That plan didn’t work and air quality was worse after it went into place, so let’s go ahead and assume that the air is going to remain toxic and dangerous for the duration of the Olympics. From here on out, let’s make it a policy that any city in which you need to wear a gas mask just to go out for dinner is not eligible to host the Games. Only a week until this debacle begins everyone, it should be a great show….
- With the craze of the Nintendo Wii, Xbox 260 and PS3 going mainstream the past couple of years, it’s become a matter of debate as to whether video game enthusiasts are still ginormous dorks. The answer to that question is in and it’s affirmative, video gamers are still huge, huge dorks. This situation all began innocently enough, with the makers of one of this year’s most-anticipated new games, “Spore,” releasing the “Creature Creator” program, which allowed players to develop their own character and control its evolution from a single-celled organism to a member of a complex cultural civilization. The program was supposed to build excitement for the game’s release, but what it ended up doing was showing what a bunch of twist, sick freaks that ivdeo game enthusiasts are. Within 24 hours of the release of “Creature Creator,” millions of new characters had been created and thrown into an online database and shown on a YouTube channel. There was a three-legged seahorse, a seven-eyed wildebeest, a half-motorcycle-half-pig creature….and those were the good ones. Alongside those creatures were the dancing, two-legged testicles, a “giant breast monster” and the ever-popular “phallic fornication machine.” The game’s creators, Electronic Arts and “Sims” mastermind Will Wright, were horrified. The disgusting, never-kissed-a-girl-and-live-in-my-parents’-basement creations ever have a term to describe them: “Sporn.” So hats off to you, losers worldwide whose only means of actually having anything to do with sex is making up a “giant breast monster” on a video game. I’m sure you’ll get loads of girls with that kind of creativity. Honestly, you’d expect this from a bunch of 11-year-old kids, but you just know the idiots designing these things are adults. Thankfully most of these a-holes are probably still suffering a Comi-Con hangover and won't be reading this, so I can avoid scores of angry emails….not that I care what these losers think anyhow…..
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