- Monday was a decidedly bad night for Jack Bauer. Last night’s episode of 24 brought Jack the bad news that he had in fact been infected by the airborne pathogen in the biological weapon he temporarily hijacked from Starkwood Industries. The hour begins with the CDC arriving on the scene to contain the threat, test and question Jack. He’s forced to strip and hosed down after being given an injection that would supposedly combat many known pathogens he may have been infected with. Then, Jack details what he knows of the bioweapon and was hauled off to the FBI to be debriefed. Along the way, the CDC doctor receives Jack’s test results and relays the results to him. It turns out that he is infected, but that the disease he’s contracted isn’t contagious. He arrives at the FBI office and because he’s not contagious, he can go straight in to be debriefed by Renee Walker. She tries to comfort him about his bad news and commends him for saving the life of the security guard back at the port, but Jack remains all business. He spells out everything he knows about the weapon and is hopeful that will help. Meanwhile, Tony Almeida is arriving at the Starkwood compound along with the bioweapon, a prisoner of the team that took the weapon back from Jack. Jonas Hodges is there to meet Tony and tells him that if he simply explains what the government knows about the bioweapon, he will be allowed to walk away after some mildly rough treatment. Tony won't crack and is taken off for some torture by Stokes, one of Hodges’ go-to guys. Meanwhile, Hodges’ right-hand man Greg Seaton pulls him aside and expresses concerns about continuing their current plan of action to deploy the bioweapon on American soil. He cautions Hodges that it’s not too late to pull back, but Hodges rips him a new one and will have none of the argument. Seemingly spurred to rebel by Hodges’ rebuke, Seaton finds the room where Tony is being interrogated by Stokes and breaks in. He shoots Stokes and frees Tony with the explanation that he wants to stop Hodges’ plan. Together, the pair makes their way to Seaton’s office to call the FBI and attempt to secure a pardon for Seaton in exchange for the whereabouts of the bioweapon. Larry Moss takes the call at the FBI and immediately gets in touch with the president, who takes the advice of several in her inner circle and seizes on the chance to get valuable intel. Although she’s horrified to learn of Starkwood’s evil plans and blames herself and her administration for not stopping them sooner, President Taylor signs the pardon electronically and Seaton does the same at Starkwood headquarters. With his pardon signed, sealed and delivered, Seaton gives up the location of the weapon. He claims it’s located at the north end of the compound in a warehouse and acting on that intelligence, Moss and his strike team set up their operation, Also, Seaton takes Tony to the warehouse so he can provide eyes and ground support for the strike force when they arrive. Moments later, Larry and his men are rapelling from helicopters, surrounding the warehouse and blowing the door. By this point, Hodges and his men have found out that the feds were coming, but the bioweapon isn’t quite ready. As the door is blown open and the strike team barges in, they find…..an empty building, what else? You didn’t think this would end so easily, did you? Seaton turns out to be a red herring, distracting the FBI and the SEAL team accompanying them to the wrong building at the wrong end of the compound. Hodges sees the entire scene unfold on surveillance cameras and remarks, “Little Seaton bought us some time.” Tony is furious at having been played, but he is restrained from seeking any revenge on Seaton. When Larry, the strike team and the SEAL team exit the building they are met by a mini-Starkwood army led by Stokes. Stokes reminds them that their warrant was for the warehouse only and if they attempt to do anything else but leave the compound, they will be fired upon. That’s where things end, and outside of the above-mentioned developments, the only other pieces of news are personnel moves from the White House. Aaron Pierce, heading home after being cleared medically following a gunshot wound suffered in the Juma attack, is flagged down by Olivia Taylor. She requests that he come out of retirement to be her Secret Service protector while she is interim chief of staff for the president. Also, Olivia and the president begin compiling names of possible replacements for Ethan Kanin as chief of staff on a permanent basis. All in all, a downer of an episode and not a lot of action, but it does set up quite a showdown for next week at the Starkwood compound…….
- Oh, how the mighty infomercial talking heads haven fallen. Seems like just yesterday that Vince Shlomi, a.k.a. the ShamWow Guy, was all up in our grills on the TV screen, touting the virtues of his glorified shamus, proclaiming that you know it’s good because it’s made in Germany and offering multiple ShamWows for three easy payments. Actually, based on the frequency of those ShamWow infomercials, it probably was yesterday and multiple times today. But right now, hawking super shamuses isn’t what Vince is getting the most attention for. No, his arrest in Miami on a felony battery charge following a violent confrontation with a prostitute in his South Beach hotel room would be Vince’s current top story. He was arrested last month after allegedly taking a $1,000 hooker back to his South Beach hotel room after meeting her at a Miami Beach nightclub on February 7. Shlomi took Sasha Harris back to his $750 room at the lavish Setai hotel and gave her $1000 in cash after she "propositioned him for straight sex." For some odd reason, Shlomi decided that kissing his $1,000 hooker was the way to go. When he kissed her, Harris either didn’t like it or chose to play rough. She bit his tongue and wouldn’t let go, at which point Shlomi punched Harris several times until she released his tongue. She then left the hotel room, but hotel security spotted her on her way out of the building and called the cops. Harris refused to cooperate with the police, but after speaking with both her and Shlomi, officers reported “a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage emitting from their persons.” So they were both drunk? Huh. Never would have guessed that, given the calm and conscientious demeanor they both exhibited in their encounter. A hooker and a john getting into an altercation at 4 a.m. are both drunk? I may never recover from that shock. Even without Harris’ cooperation, police were all but able to confirm the monetary portion of the story based on the $930 they recovered from her purse. Ultimately, prosecutors declined to file formal charges against the combatants even though both were arrested for felony aggravated battery. Harris claims to be considering a lawsuit against Shlomi, but you’re usually better off not relying on the word of a confirmed prostitute, so don’t bet on it. No word yet on how this will impact Shlomi’s career as a pitchman in infomercials or if the producers of products like the ShamWow or the Slap Chop will want a confirmed solicitor of South Beach Hookers selling their products on TV. Way to screw up the great thing you had going, Vince…….
- Hey college basketball fans, I’ve got another great reason for you to hate Duke. Although hating the Dukies has been a little less satisfying because the Blue Devils are no longer a serious threat to win the national title in any given season, their palpable arrogance is still reason enough to despise them. That being said, add some more fuel to that anti-Duke fire because the nation's top scoring freshman, Seth Curry of Liberty, has decided to transfer to Duke for next season. Curry, younger brother of scoring sensation Stephen Curry of Davidson, averaged 20.2 points a game for the Flames this past season and now he’ll be rocking the blue and white of Duke. Under NCAA transfer rules, he’ll have to sit out the 2009-10 season, but will be eligible for 2010-11 and have three years of eligibility remaining. Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski offered up the scholarship and Curry accepted after touring the Duke campus over the weekend. Clearly, he was not deterred by the fact that the Dukies are fortunate to make it as far as the Sweet 16 these days and are no longer one of college basketball’s elite programs. "Coach K kept telling him the timing couldn't be better," Seth’s father Dell Curry said. "There'll be plenty of opportunities to contribute." Reportedly, Seth Curry was won over by the opportunity to get a Duke education and also by the new Duke practice facility, which Dell said is on par with NBA facilities. I’m guessing that balling at a small mid-major school like Liberty was also a factor in the decision, because Seth Curry clearly has his eyes set on playing in the NBA some day and while Duke may no longer be a national title contender like it once was, the school does churn out quite a few solid NBA players. I can't say that I had many chances to see Liberty play this season, but from what I did see of Seth Curry he is a nice scorer and could be a star if he bulks up and finds his place at Duke. The fact that the Blue Devils continue to land blue-chip prospects even after they’ve begun their college careers elsewhere also gives me more ammo in my Duke hating, so I suppose that’s a positive as well. Hope you enjoy the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament each year, Seth, because that’s all the further you’ll ever get in your Duke career……
- Thanks for nothing, Supreme Court. You had a golden opportunity to address a significant issue that impacts nearly every American, regardless of age, race or gender, and you passed? Not a day goes by that my life isn’t made worse by the menace that is spam email, but you can’t be bothered with a case on the issue? What would have been so difficult about hearing a case that would have give you the opportunity to examine how far states can go to restrict unsolicited e-mails in efforts to block spammers from jamming the inboxes of computer users? The state of Virginia was making a commendable effort to keep its Computer Crimes Act in place, but the justices of the Supreme Court wouldn’t hear the case. The CCA was one of the toughest laws of its kind in the nation, the only one to ban noncommercial -- as well as commercial -- spam e-mail to consumers in that state, but now it will cease to exist. The case itself centered on prolific commercial spammer Jeremy Jaynes, who was convicted of a felony in 2004 for sending bulk unsolicited electronic messages. He became the first person in the United States convicted for such an offense after a Virginia jury found Jaynes used several computers and servers to send as many as 24,000 spam e-mails in one day to America Online subscribers. His operation was based on the use of false "header" info and sender domain names. What kills me about this conviction being tossed out is that a search of his Raleigh, North Carolina, home found CDs with more than 176 million e-mail addresses and 1.3 billion e-mail user names, some of them stolen by a former AOL employee. Jaynes was sentenced to nine years in prison, but the state high court eventually reversed the conviction. The idiots in the state supreme court said the law was overbroad because some bulk e-mails might contain political, religious, or other speech that has traditionally been given higher First Amendment protection than typical "commercial speech." Nice try, a-holes. No one who sends spam deserves any protection, period. They have no first amendment rights, they have no protection and they should have a jail cell waiting for them. No one wants their messages about mortgage scams, crank-enhancer pills from online pharmacies, get-rich-quick scams or any of the other garbage that people send junk emails about. The U.S. Supreme Court should have seized on the opportunity to weigh whether such anti-spam laws overreach into protected speech, but they wussed out. In Jaynes case, the decision isn’t that much of a travesty because he remains behind bars because of a federal securities fraud conviction unrelated to the state spamming charges. However, it sets a terrible precedent for like-minded idiots out there and that’s a problem for all of us……
- Attention all other contenders for the title of world’s worst dad: you may as well drop out of the race, because there is no freaking way you’re competing with Arcedio Alvarez Quintero. Alvarez, a central Colombian farm worker, has been accused of raping his daughter for decades and fathering eight children with her. The sexual abuse allegedly began shortly after 35-year-old Alba Nidia’s mother died and has continued for three decades, resulting in 14 pregnancies. Eight children -- five girls and three boys -- survived. Alvarez has finally been stopped and is being held in jail to face charges of sexual abuse, incest and aggravated sexual assault. He and his family live near the town of Mariquita in the western province of Tolima, where the local media have rightly dubbed him a "monster." Incredibly, Alvarez entered "innocent" pleas to the charges. His attorney, Ricardo Correa, said that his client's defense "will be that Alba Nidia is not his biological daughter," but his adopted child. Authorities plan to conduct blood tests to determine the two's genetic relationship, so the crux of this case should be cleared up very quickly. The thing is, even if Nidia isn’t his biological daughter and she didn’t want to have sex with him, all of those hundreds of encounters over the years were still wrong. "I feel confused -- knowing that he has been arrested, he is still my father," Nidia explained. "But I think it's the right thing to do." What truly sucks about this case is that even if Alvarez is convicted, he could receive as little as eight years in prison. Thankfully, local councilwoman Gilma Jimenez has offered her financial assistance to Nidia and has stood behind her throughout the past few weeks. "One of the tragedies of this whole story, is that it seems that many different people in the community knew about this situation, but no one said anything," Jimenez lamented. In the end, it was up to Nidia to find a way out of a bad situation and she did so by running away from the home she shared with her father nine months ago, taking her five daughters -- the youngest of whom was less than a year old -- and her 5-year-old son. Together, they moved to a nearby down and Nidia began working 15 hours a day at a restaurant and earning less than $3 a day for her efforts. Without Jiminez’s support, she and her children would not have been able to survive. Some observers have likened the case to that of Josef Fritzl, the 73-year-old Austrian who was sentenced this month to life in prison for imprisoning and raping his daughter in his basement over 24 years, during which time she gave birth to seven children. Both are incredibly creepy and disgusting, so I’m not going to even attempt to decide which one is worse because both are too revolting for that sort of analysis. No trial date has been scheduled for Alvarez at this point, but whenever the trial comes, I will be rooting for this certified piece of crap to get the maximum possible sentence. Ironically, the case comes as Colombia is weighing whether to change the constitution to punish convicted child abusers with up to life imprisonment. A campaign calling for a referendum on the issue says it has collected more than 2 million signatures, so hopefully the law will go into effect in time for Alvarez to spend the rest of his pathetic life behind bars…..
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
A Greek season premiere, NCAA Tournament observations and a recap of tonight's Heroes
- Last night was a jam-packed night of TV for me, but as much as I enjoy Heroes, 24 and Chuck, the return Greek on ABC Family was also a lot of fun. With everyone ending their various summer plans and heading back to Cyprus Rhodes, things were bound to get interesting. Rusty Cartwright wrapped up his summer as a camp counselor, said goodbye to the annoying, bratty kids he’d been in charge of and headed back to campus and to his new home at the Kappa Tau house. Life in the house didn’t turn out to be quite what he’d expected in several ways. First, the odd schedule and habits of his KT brothers threw Rusty for a loop. Their total disregard for academics, frequent midday naps and extremely bad eating habits all threatened to derail his own, more traditional approach to college. To that end, he made serious modifications to his room, soundproofing it and turning it into his own personal “oasis.” He felt the oasis would allow him to be both a full-time KT brother and full-time engineering major, but those plans lasted less than a day. Cappie and Beaver came bursting in in the middle of the night, doing some construction of their own - to turn Rusty’s single room into a quad. With two bunk beds instead of one single bed, Rusty was in a bind. He elected to try and sleep in the shed, out behind the KT house, but the creaky and dirty atmosphere - plus a resident opossum - forced him to reconsider things again. With his living situation weighing on his mind, he overslept one day, got no sleep another night and nearly missed out on getting in line for the rush of engineering students waiting to get the best deals on textbooks for the classes they all were required to take for sophomore year. Big sister Casey is having her own dilemma, returning from her summer internship working for a congresswoman in Washington and lying to everyone about how great her summer was when in truth, it sucked. She and boyfriend Max arrive back at CRU and Casey continues to tell everyone what an amazing summer she had. However, as BFF and new Zeta Beta Zeta president Ashleigh welcomes her home, Casey is secretly planning to move out of the ZBZ house because she believes that she needs to focus and become more serious for her senior year. Ashleigh is trying to keep ZBZ afloat in the wake of mass defections to follow ex-ZBZ president and sister Frannie’s defection to start her own sorority - Iota Kappa Iota. Rebecca Logan has left with Frannie, working to establish IKI on campus. Ashleigh and Casey plot to build ZBZ back up with a new pledge class to be recruited during rush week, but Frannie has a devious plan to outdo them. Although IKI’s accommodations aren’t great - a creaky old rental house with a cigarette-smoking, booze hand landlady living in the attic - Frannie has an advantage because IKI is not an official sorority and member of the school’s Pan-Hellenic council yet and thus not subject to its rules, specifically those governing rush week. Frannie and Rebecca pay visits to select incoming freshman they want to recruit to IKI and invite them to a special weekend lake retreat. There, they try to show off what IKI is all about, but when they call for the men of Omega Chi to come out and show their new recruits what kind of company they can expect to keep for parties and mixers, Frannie and Co. get a surprise. Casey and Ashleigh have managed to infiltrate the party and have conspired with the Kappa Taus to crash the event. While KT brother Jeremy poses at the bus driver taking the Omega Chi party bus to the lake and delays their arrival, the KT’s bum rush the IKI gathering, horrifying the pledges and IKI sisters in the process. As the potential pledges flee, Casey, Ashleigh and their ZBZ sisters are waiting at a party of their own and promise that although Pan-Hellenic rules prevent them from talking now, they look forward to meeting the girls during rush week. The KT’s add one final touch to the plan by stealing the party bus the Omega Chis arrived on and speeding away. With the KT’s is Andy, a new freshman and old high school football teammate of Omega Chi brother Calvin Owens, who is also a good friend of Rusty. Andy was already thinking about how cool the KT’s were after visiting their house with Calvin to catch up with Rusty and seeing the KT’s indoor slip-and-slide, beer-flavor popsicles and hot girls on hand. When he gets caught on the party bus as the KT’s steal it, Andy then spends the ride back with Cappie and crew and comes to admire them even more. Thanks in large part to a speech Rusty makes about what the brotherhood means to him, Andy seems clearly on the fence about which frat to rush. And what would a season premiere be without the ever-annoying Dale? Rusty’s roommate fro freshman year is having a tough time adjusting to his new roommate, who just happens to be Canadian. Dale can’t seem to tolerate sharing a dorm room with a “foreigner” and turns to Rusty for help. As it turns out, fate hands them a nice solution when Rusty decides that he can still be a full KT brother without living in the KT house. He finds himself in need of a place to stay and after one night crashing on the floor of his old RA/big sister’s boyfriend Max, Rusty gets a break when Casey reconsiders her plans to move out of the ZBZ house. Because she’s already signed a lease on a new apartment and Rusty and Dale need a place to live, they step in and take the apartment. So Rusty and Dale are once again roomies, good times. The last bit of news from the episode comes near the end, when Casey is pulled into a bizarre, impromptu meeting with Ashleigh and Rebecca in a bathroom stall. Ashleigh reveals that Rebecca never actually left ZBZ and is simply posing as an IKI spy to trick Frannie and get the low down on the new sorority. Like I said at the top, a fun episode and a great kickoff to a new season for Greek, I’m looking forward to another great semester on campus at Cyprus Rhodes…….
- All right, now it’s gone too far. I was already against child pornography charges for teenagers who received nude pics of friends, girlfriends, etc. on their cell phones, but this is taking it one step further to a very, very unsavory place. A 14-year-old girl from New Jersey has been arrested after uploading 30 explicit images to the noted pedophile haven MySpace. Don’t get me wrong; MySpace is still really, really lame and creepy, but how anyone - regardless of age - can be arrested for posting pictures OF THEMSELVES is absurd to the nth degree. The idea that you don’t have total say over your own likeness and how you use it is ridiculous, even if you are 14 years old. This isn’t sex, where a 14-year-old girl might do something she will later regret and can’t take back the irrevocable effects of. She’s posting pictures of herself on a website "because she wanted her boyfriend to see them," according to her statement to police. That some loser took the time, stuck his or her nose where it didn’t belong and tipped the police off to the images is sad. Yes, anyone who friended her on MySpace could have seen them, but again this girl has the right to approve or reject any friend request that comes along. Now, because of this gutless, anonymous tipster this New Jersey girl faces up to 17 years in jail if convicted of possession and distribution of child pornography. Oh, and she could also be placed on a state register of sex offenders - FOR POSTING PICTURES OF HERSELF! I CANNOT EMPHASIZE THE ABSURDITY OF THIS ENOUGH - PICTURES OF HERSELF. If you don’t think something is horribly wrong with a person being put through all of this for using her own likeness in the way she wants, teenager or not, you have a problem with yourself……
- Heroes went south of the border last night, and no, it wasn’t a nice Tijuana run. Nathan and Claire, daughter and biological father, were on the run after Nathan’s cover was blown and his power to fly revealed by Emile Danko two weeks ago. After saving Claire from agents who stormed her house because her “free pass” from Nathan that other PWP (people with powers) didn’t get had been revoked, Nathan flew the two of them just south of the border to escape. After holing up in a grungy motel in the town of Patzcuaro, they hit the local cantina for a meal and Claire also makes a side trip to sell a necklace given to her by adoptive dad H.R.G. to get them some extra cash. Nathan has his own ideas for fundraising, challenging a trio of vacationing fraternity boys to a drinking game. They down shot after shot of tequila, but by the 22nd round Nathan is out and his money seemingly lost - until Claire steps in. With her power to heal and regenerate all of her tissue, she’s impervious to the effects of alcohol (a nice fringe benefit) and wins the contest in place of dear old dad. Back at the motel room, a drunk Nathan vows to fix the mess he’s created with Danko and the persecution of PWP, along with admitting that he gave Claire her free pass because he hoped it would make up for his years as an absentee dad. The next morning, he quickly reneges on his promises and dismisses them as drunken ramblings, which angers Claire. She chastises him, saying she expected more, for him to “be Superman.’ As Claire waits for the next bus back to San Diego, Nathan gets himself together, manages to pawn his own valuable watch to get her necklace back and convinces Claire to forego the bus trip and fly back to the U.S. with him. As for Nathan’s’ brother Peter and his mom Angela, life is equally stressful back stateside. After saving Angela from agents in New York last week, Peter and his mom fly to a Gothic-looking, huge church where she claims she’ll find answers about what their next move needs to be. Inside the church, she explains that she’s always been able to find peace in this very place, having been married here and been to many other meaningful events. To figure out the next move, she must be able to relax, sleep and dream, for dreams are where her visions of the future come. Sleep has eluded her of late, she tells Peter. As the church service ends and everyone leaves, Peter and Angela remain behind. They hunker down and appear to be trapped when agents storm the church in search of them. The only escape is hiding in a confessional booth, but that seems doomed as agents scour every inch of the building. Fortunately for Peter and Angela, H.R.G. is the agent who checks the confessional booths and because he’s in league with Angela, he doesn’t give up their hiding place. The agents leave, Angela eventually finds sleep and dreams to figure out what to do next. When she awakes, she informs Peter that the next step is to find Nathan and Claire, reunite their family and “go see her sister.” That will be the big storyline next week, but this week’s most interesting development came when everyone’s favorite serial killer Sylar finally got back on the screen after a conspicuous absence last week. With Danko and his team hunting a PWP named James Martin and his unknown power, Sylar is lurking not far away. Martin manages to escape the agents who raid his Alexandria, Va. home and Danko can’t figure out how. In his car outside the house, Danko tries to clear his head and shake off the deaths of three agents when who appears in the back seat but Sylar. Sylar offers to help Danko catch Martin, but before Danko can draw his weapon and try to shoot the most wanted man for his team, Sylar is gone. Danko heads back to the office and consults with his team and specifically H.R.G. about how to find Martin, but when a cell phone inside a mysterious package delivered to his office rings, Danko gets some unexpected assistance. Sylar is calling, having found another dead body killed by James Martin. He then explains that the reason Danko couldn’t catch Martin was because Martin’s power is shape-shifting, i.e. he can change his appearance to become a different person. To prove the point, Sylar left the head from the corpse he found in the box he placed inside Danko’s office. At the sight of the head, Agent Jenkins, who was in Danko’s office prior to the phone call, takes off running. Danko realizes the man who looks like Jenkins must actually be Martin and gives chase. However, Martin changes his appearance again while fleeing through the parking garage and disappears onto the crowded street. In an attempt to get the jump on Martin, both Sylar and Danko both head to his apartment in hopes of gaining insight into Martin’s world. Both go on their own, with Danko arriving first and waiting on Sylar with the intent of putting a bullet in the back of his head. However, Sylar is able to talk his way out of that predicament and tells Danko that the flaw in his plan is that he can’t catch Martin on his own. Sylar and Danko reach something of a truce and begin rifling through Martin’s belongings, finding a bizarre collection of outfits - doctor, lawyer, police officer, priest - in the closet and a collection of pictures with what appear to be completely different men, each shown with an incredibly hot woman. Sylar uses his ability to get inside people’s mind and understand what makes them tick to realize that all of Martin’s outfits are ones that allow him to assume a position of power. He then theorizes that the men in all of the pictures are actually one man - Martin. He assumes identities that will make him appear to be a man of power and thus get all the women he wants. Finding Martin becomes easier when Danko and Sylar find multiple books of matches from a bar called the Garden of Eden lying around the apartment. When they show up at the bar, Sylar spots Martin immediately and the sight makes him smile, as Martin has assumed a new identity that hits close to home. He’s now posing as Danko, to which Sylar cracks, “He’s a better you than you.” Trying to apprehend Martin proves difficult and he’s soon lost in the crowd, but as Danko observes from a balcony Sylar sidles up to him and they decide to call it a night. As Sylar exits the club with Danko behind him, Danko puts a bullet in his back. Just when it seems that he’s done the impossible and killed Sylar, the truth is revealed as the real Sylar comes out the door. Danko has killed Martin, who had assumed Sylar’s identity. The sight of Martin in front of him causes Sylar’s eyes to light up because he wants to steal the shape-shifting power. He prepares to slice Martin’s head open but Danko asks if he can do it without the head-slicing. Using lessons learned from his disastrous visit to his father earlier this season, Sylar is able to take the power with no bloodshed and it immediately proves useful. To conceal their new partnership, Sylar and Danko stage a phony crime scene with Martin/Sylar lying prone on the ground, a knife in the back of his head in the one spot where the real Sylar is vulnerable. H.R.G. shows up, views the body and apparently believes it’s Sylar, although I’m not so sure he is convinced. But the medical examiner covers the body back over, then walks over to Danko’s car and gets inside. Once there, the ME shape-shifts back into Sylar, who has clearly mastered his new power. He and Danko speak of their new partnership, to which Danko replies, “If we do this, you’ll be the only one left.” Sylar’s reply? “Funny how that works out.” So is Sylar going to turn on his fellow PWP and help Danko hunt them down? Seems like a sick twist on H.R.G. and the Company’s old strategy of “One of us, one of them.” Next week, it’s a road trip for the Petrelli family to visit Angela’s sister and find out more of their back story, but that’s all for this episode……
-Props to you, video game dorks. With most of the gaming world gathering for the Convention of Dorks, er, the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Calif., there was a lot for these nerds to look forward to. Among those things was the Game Design Challenge, which threw down the gauntlet to dorks to create concepts for a game about "your first time." Right, because who better to create a video game about having sex for the first time than losers who play video games all day in their basements, never allow the light of the sun to touch their skin and have yet to hold a girl’s hand, let alone have sex with one? This was the sixth straight year of the design challenge, hosted annually by New York-based game developer Eric Zimmerman. Previous contests have brought in top-tier game designers like two-time winner and Spore and The Sims creator Will Wright, Deus Ex lead designer Harvey Smith and Leather Goddesses of Phobos creator Steve Meretzsky. This time around, the dorks were tasked with creating a video game concept about something none of them have ever experienced and the winner was the two-woman team of Heather Kelley and Erin Robinson, who won with just 36 hours of preparation, while their competitors had weeks to come up with ideas. There were only three competitors, so it’s not as if this was a deep, talented field of dorks looking to battle it out. Kelley and Robinson battled Meretzsky and Habbo Hotel lead designer Sulka Haro. The two women came up with a concept for "Our first times," and presented it as a two-level game, one level for Kelley's experience and the other for Robinson's. They theorized about a series of mini games that could be played on Nintendo's Wii, or possibly on Apple's iPhone. Zimmerman claims that the purpose of the challenge is "to think about how we can create games that really break away" from what's been done before, which is great because whose life hasn’t been touched by the sheer creativity, passion and thought-provoking complexity of video games? Not that this dork-sex video game concept will ever see the light of day, but here’s how Kelley describes she and her partner’s vision: the game would commence with the player having to pick an outfit for a date that was intended to conclude with their deflowering, followed by a mini game in which players would have to shave their legs, go to dinner and make sure to remove all the garlic from the meals, followed by the next mini game that would revolve around choosing the proper mood music from a selection of LPs, after which the player would be challenged with "not falling off the top bunk" in a college dorm room," followed by the final task would involve flicking off the smirking roommate. Great idea, except that none of the losers you’d theoretically market your game to would have a clue about any of this……
- Not a great weekend for the NCAA Tournament. Following an underwhelming opening weekend last week, I had high hopes for this weekend when it came to the best event in all of sports. And while there were a couple of high points and dramatic moments, by and large the games were once again a ginormous disappointment. Dramatic moments included Michigan State trailing nearly the entire game against Kansas in a Midwest regional semifinal before rallying to tie the game and take the lead on a driving layup by guard Kalin Lucas in the game’s final minutes, Pittsburgh’s knock-down, drag-out 60-55 street fight of a win over Xavier and of course, the uber-dramatic Pitt-Villanova game that was back and forth all game long before Pitt tied the contest on two LeVance Fields free throws with 5.5 second left and ‘Nova guard Scottie Reynolds drove the length of the floor for the winning layup with less than a second left. Those things notwithstanding, there were far too many blowouts and games that were never interesting from nearly the opening tip, with Oklahoma (defeating Syracuse 84-71), North Carolina (crushing Gonzaga 98-77), Louisville (thrashing Arizona 103-64) and Villanova (b*tch-slapping Duke 77-54) the more notable mismatches of the weekend. Couple those blowouts with the fact that 14 of the tournament’s top 16 seeds were playing and you have a subpar weekend of basketball. There were no Cinderella stories and knowing that, you had to at least hope for a lot of competitive games between teams that should have been evenly matched. Instead, none of those possibilities materialized and I was left to watch what might have been the worst second weekend of this tournament in all the years I’ve been watching it…..
- All right, now it’s gone too far. I was already against child pornography charges for teenagers who received nude pics of friends, girlfriends, etc. on their cell phones, but this is taking it one step further to a very, very unsavory place. A 14-year-old girl from New Jersey has been arrested after uploading 30 explicit images to the noted pedophile haven MySpace. Don’t get me wrong; MySpace is still really, really lame and creepy, but how anyone - regardless of age - can be arrested for posting pictures OF THEMSELVES is absurd to the nth degree. The idea that you don’t have total say over your own likeness and how you use it is ridiculous, even if you are 14 years old. This isn’t sex, where a 14-year-old girl might do something she will later regret and can’t take back the irrevocable effects of. She’s posting pictures of herself on a website "because she wanted her boyfriend to see them," according to her statement to police. That some loser took the time, stuck his or her nose where it didn’t belong and tipped the police off to the images is sad. Yes, anyone who friended her on MySpace could have seen them, but again this girl has the right to approve or reject any friend request that comes along. Now, because of this gutless, anonymous tipster this New Jersey girl faces up to 17 years in jail if convicted of possession and distribution of child pornography. Oh, and she could also be placed on a state register of sex offenders - FOR POSTING PICTURES OF HERSELF! I CANNOT EMPHASIZE THE ABSURDITY OF THIS ENOUGH - PICTURES OF HERSELF. If you don’t think something is horribly wrong with a person being put through all of this for using her own likeness in the way she wants, teenager or not, you have a problem with yourself……
- Heroes went south of the border last night, and no, it wasn’t a nice Tijuana run. Nathan and Claire, daughter and biological father, were on the run after Nathan’s cover was blown and his power to fly revealed by Emile Danko two weeks ago. After saving Claire from agents who stormed her house because her “free pass” from Nathan that other PWP (people with powers) didn’t get had been revoked, Nathan flew the two of them just south of the border to escape. After holing up in a grungy motel in the town of Patzcuaro, they hit the local cantina for a meal and Claire also makes a side trip to sell a necklace given to her by adoptive dad H.R.G. to get them some extra cash. Nathan has his own ideas for fundraising, challenging a trio of vacationing fraternity boys to a drinking game. They down shot after shot of tequila, but by the 22nd round Nathan is out and his money seemingly lost - until Claire steps in. With her power to heal and regenerate all of her tissue, she’s impervious to the effects of alcohol (a nice fringe benefit) and wins the contest in place of dear old dad. Back at the motel room, a drunk Nathan vows to fix the mess he’s created with Danko and the persecution of PWP, along with admitting that he gave Claire her free pass because he hoped it would make up for his years as an absentee dad. The next morning, he quickly reneges on his promises and dismisses them as drunken ramblings, which angers Claire. She chastises him, saying she expected more, for him to “be Superman.’ As Claire waits for the next bus back to San Diego, Nathan gets himself together, manages to pawn his own valuable watch to get her necklace back and convinces Claire to forego the bus trip and fly back to the U.S. with him. As for Nathan’s’ brother Peter and his mom Angela, life is equally stressful back stateside. After saving Angela from agents in New York last week, Peter and his mom fly to a Gothic-looking, huge church where she claims she’ll find answers about what their next move needs to be. Inside the church, she explains that she’s always been able to find peace in this very place, having been married here and been to many other meaningful events. To figure out the next move, she must be able to relax, sleep and dream, for dreams are where her visions of the future come. Sleep has eluded her of late, she tells Peter. As the church service ends and everyone leaves, Peter and Angela remain behind. They hunker down and appear to be trapped when agents storm the church in search of them. The only escape is hiding in a confessional booth, but that seems doomed as agents scour every inch of the building. Fortunately for Peter and Angela, H.R.G. is the agent who checks the confessional booths and because he’s in league with Angela, he doesn’t give up their hiding place. The agents leave, Angela eventually finds sleep and dreams to figure out what to do next. When she awakes, she informs Peter that the next step is to find Nathan and Claire, reunite their family and “go see her sister.” That will be the big storyline next week, but this week’s most interesting development came when everyone’s favorite serial killer Sylar finally got back on the screen after a conspicuous absence last week. With Danko and his team hunting a PWP named James Martin and his unknown power, Sylar is lurking not far away. Martin manages to escape the agents who raid his Alexandria, Va. home and Danko can’t figure out how. In his car outside the house, Danko tries to clear his head and shake off the deaths of three agents when who appears in the back seat but Sylar. Sylar offers to help Danko catch Martin, but before Danko can draw his weapon and try to shoot the most wanted man for his team, Sylar is gone. Danko heads back to the office and consults with his team and specifically H.R.G. about how to find Martin, but when a cell phone inside a mysterious package delivered to his office rings, Danko gets some unexpected assistance. Sylar is calling, having found another dead body killed by James Martin. He then explains that the reason Danko couldn’t catch Martin was because Martin’s power is shape-shifting, i.e. he can change his appearance to become a different person. To prove the point, Sylar left the head from the corpse he found in the box he placed inside Danko’s office. At the sight of the head, Agent Jenkins, who was in Danko’s office prior to the phone call, takes off running. Danko realizes the man who looks like Jenkins must actually be Martin and gives chase. However, Martin changes his appearance again while fleeing through the parking garage and disappears onto the crowded street. In an attempt to get the jump on Martin, both Sylar and Danko both head to his apartment in hopes of gaining insight into Martin’s world. Both go on their own, with Danko arriving first and waiting on Sylar with the intent of putting a bullet in the back of his head. However, Sylar is able to talk his way out of that predicament and tells Danko that the flaw in his plan is that he can’t catch Martin on his own. Sylar and Danko reach something of a truce and begin rifling through Martin’s belongings, finding a bizarre collection of outfits - doctor, lawyer, police officer, priest - in the closet and a collection of pictures with what appear to be completely different men, each shown with an incredibly hot woman. Sylar uses his ability to get inside people’s mind and understand what makes them tick to realize that all of Martin’s outfits are ones that allow him to assume a position of power. He then theorizes that the men in all of the pictures are actually one man - Martin. He assumes identities that will make him appear to be a man of power and thus get all the women he wants. Finding Martin becomes easier when Danko and Sylar find multiple books of matches from a bar called the Garden of Eden lying around the apartment. When they show up at the bar, Sylar spots Martin immediately and the sight makes him smile, as Martin has assumed a new identity that hits close to home. He’s now posing as Danko, to which Sylar cracks, “He’s a better you than you.” Trying to apprehend Martin proves difficult and he’s soon lost in the crowd, but as Danko observes from a balcony Sylar sidles up to him and they decide to call it a night. As Sylar exits the club with Danko behind him, Danko puts a bullet in his back. Just when it seems that he’s done the impossible and killed Sylar, the truth is revealed as the real Sylar comes out the door. Danko has killed Martin, who had assumed Sylar’s identity. The sight of Martin in front of him causes Sylar’s eyes to light up because he wants to steal the shape-shifting power. He prepares to slice Martin’s head open but Danko asks if he can do it without the head-slicing. Using lessons learned from his disastrous visit to his father earlier this season, Sylar is able to take the power with no bloodshed and it immediately proves useful. To conceal their new partnership, Sylar and Danko stage a phony crime scene with Martin/Sylar lying prone on the ground, a knife in the back of his head in the one spot where the real Sylar is vulnerable. H.R.G. shows up, views the body and apparently believes it’s Sylar, although I’m not so sure he is convinced. But the medical examiner covers the body back over, then walks over to Danko’s car and gets inside. Once there, the ME shape-shifts back into Sylar, who has clearly mastered his new power. He and Danko speak of their new partnership, to which Danko replies, “If we do this, you’ll be the only one left.” Sylar’s reply? “Funny how that works out.” So is Sylar going to turn on his fellow PWP and help Danko hunt them down? Seems like a sick twist on H.R.G. and the Company’s old strategy of “One of us, one of them.” Next week, it’s a road trip for the Petrelli family to visit Angela’s sister and find out more of their back story, but that’s all for this episode……
-Props to you, video game dorks. With most of the gaming world gathering for the Convention of Dorks, er, the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Calif., there was a lot for these nerds to look forward to. Among those things was the Game Design Challenge, which threw down the gauntlet to dorks to create concepts for a game about "your first time." Right, because who better to create a video game about having sex for the first time than losers who play video games all day in their basements, never allow the light of the sun to touch their skin and have yet to hold a girl’s hand, let alone have sex with one? This was the sixth straight year of the design challenge, hosted annually by New York-based game developer Eric Zimmerman. Previous contests have brought in top-tier game designers like two-time winner and Spore and The Sims creator Will Wright, Deus Ex lead designer Harvey Smith and Leather Goddesses of Phobos creator Steve Meretzsky. This time around, the dorks were tasked with creating a video game concept about something none of them have ever experienced and the winner was the two-woman team of Heather Kelley and Erin Robinson, who won with just 36 hours of preparation, while their competitors had weeks to come up with ideas. There were only three competitors, so it’s not as if this was a deep, talented field of dorks looking to battle it out. Kelley and Robinson battled Meretzsky and Habbo Hotel lead designer Sulka Haro. The two women came up with a concept for "Our first times," and presented it as a two-level game, one level for Kelley's experience and the other for Robinson's. They theorized about a series of mini games that could be played on Nintendo's Wii, or possibly on Apple's iPhone. Zimmerman claims that the purpose of the challenge is "to think about how we can create games that really break away" from what's been done before, which is great because whose life hasn’t been touched by the sheer creativity, passion and thought-provoking complexity of video games? Not that this dork-sex video game concept will ever see the light of day, but here’s how Kelley describes she and her partner’s vision: the game would commence with the player having to pick an outfit for a date that was intended to conclude with their deflowering, followed by a mini game in which players would have to shave their legs, go to dinner and make sure to remove all the garlic from the meals, followed by the next mini game that would revolve around choosing the proper mood music from a selection of LPs, after which the player would be challenged with "not falling off the top bunk" in a college dorm room," followed by the final task would involve flicking off the smirking roommate. Great idea, except that none of the losers you’d theoretically market your game to would have a clue about any of this……
- Not a great weekend for the NCAA Tournament. Following an underwhelming opening weekend last week, I had high hopes for this weekend when it came to the best event in all of sports. And while there were a couple of high points and dramatic moments, by and large the games were once again a ginormous disappointment. Dramatic moments included Michigan State trailing nearly the entire game against Kansas in a Midwest regional semifinal before rallying to tie the game and take the lead on a driving layup by guard Kalin Lucas in the game’s final minutes, Pittsburgh’s knock-down, drag-out 60-55 street fight of a win over Xavier and of course, the uber-dramatic Pitt-Villanova game that was back and forth all game long before Pitt tied the contest on two LeVance Fields free throws with 5.5 second left and ‘Nova guard Scottie Reynolds drove the length of the floor for the winning layup with less than a second left. Those things notwithstanding, there were far too many blowouts and games that were never interesting from nearly the opening tip, with Oklahoma (defeating Syracuse 84-71), North Carolina (crushing Gonzaga 98-77), Louisville (thrashing Arizona 103-64) and Villanova (b*tch-slapping Duke 77-54) the more notable mismatches of the weekend. Couple those blowouts with the fact that 14 of the tournament’s top 16 seeds were playing and you have a subpar weekend of basketball. There were no Cinderella stories and knowing that, you had to at least hope for a lot of competitive games between teams that should have been evenly matched. Instead, none of those possibilities materialized and I was left to watch what might have been the worst second weekend of this tournament in all the years I’ve been watching it…..
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Questions to ask about Canadian colleges, T.I. heads to J.A.I.L. and a naked pole vaulter seeking an endorsement deal
- Only one question for you, Canadian colleges: what sort of laws and restrictions do you have on couches on porches, keggers, bongs and block parties? Because you can bill yourselves as a cheaper alternative to American universities, but until you can assure me that me and my bong are welcome north of the border, it’s no deal. You can hold all of the college fairs featuring only Canadian colleges that you want for high school students in places like South Burlington, Vt. and tell them all about how four years at a Canadian university can cost a third of what a similar education would cost at a college in the United States. But if you think kids are going to the college where they can save money, you’re barking up the wrong tree. Parents may be eager to hear about cheaper education alternatives, no doubt about it. "We're also being conscientious about the expense of education," said Yvonne Garand, mother of Renee Garand, a junior at U-32 High School in South Burlington. "It's a good idea to just, you know, expand your, maybe your focus a little bit and look outside the box," her father, Rick Garand, added. Great, but if all little Renee gets is spending her next four years in some frozen tundra where warm weather is rare and chances for fun are even rarer, she’s not going to be down. I suppose one plus of going to college in Canada is that to find a warmer climate for spring break, you widen your alternatives to include just about anywhere in the United States. So while the Garands plan on visiting some Canadian universities in the summer, I urge all high school juniors and seniors to think bong, er, long and hard before applying to a Canadian university and committing to spending four years there……
- Rarely (see here “never”) do I root for the legal system, but I may have to make an exception to my rule in the case of Inez M. Starks, an Eastpointe (Mich.) woman who actually had the chutzpah to file a lawsuit in which a FREAKING POLICE DOG WAS NAMED AS A DEFENDANT. Starks sued after allegedly being bitten by the German shepherd April 7, 2007, outside of her daughter's home during a confrontation between police, her daughter and others. Starks said she was bitten when police went to the home after receiving a truancy complaint against Stark's daughter involving her daughter's child. The situation soon turned into a two-for-one for the cops when they found the woman's brother, who had an outstanding warrant. Unfortunately, the man fled and the dog was brought in to chase him down. That’s when Starks, who was living across the street from her daughter at the time, said she came over. She claims a fight had broken out and because she had to put her nose where it didn’t belong, she thrust herself into harm’s way. If you believe her version of the story, the dog bit her soon after she crossed the street. Furthermore, Starks claims that she was bitten on her right buttock and that the bite caused damage to her sacroiliac nerve, impairing her ability to walk and keeping her in pain. However, police at the scene reported no evidence on Starks’ person to prove that she had been bitten. The conspiracy theorist in me (and the law enforcement hater) would love to accuse the police of lying and fudging the report, but to be honest, Inez Starks doesn’t strike me as being all that bright or truthful. Judge David Viviano seems to agree with me, because he fined Starks $500 for frivolously naming the dog as a defendant in her lawsuit and another $500 for failing to appear in Macomb County Circuit Court for a February hearing. Memo to you, Inez: if you file a lawsuit, no matter how frivolous, you need to show up in court for all of the hearings. Suing the city and several police officers are cool in my book any day of the week, but including the dog was ridiculous at best and not showing up is just bush league. Now, you must pay the $1,000 fine by April 13 or her case will be dismissed. Paying the fine means throwing away $1,000 on a case you don’t have a prayer of winning and not paying it means looking like a chump and having the suit dismissed. Game over for you, Inez. Next time have a freaking clue what you’re doing before you go filing lawsuits against cities, cops and dogs……
- Aaron Spelling’s passing in 2006 was a sad occasion for his Hollywood friends and family, but now that he’s gone, his widow must figure out what to do with his luxurious mansion, dubbed "The Manor" and located in the exclusive Holmby Hills neighborhood of sunny Southern California. After some deliberation, Candy Spelling has decided to sell the mansion - for a whopping $150 million, that is. She’s in a tough spot, to be sure, but I guess you have to do what you have to do. On one hand, the Southern California housing market is in the crapper (like most places in the United States), so getting that steep asking price is going to be next to impossible. On the other hand, when you’re holding a French chateau-style mansion with 56,500 square feet of space on more than 4.6 acres that is the largest home in Los Angeles County, you don’t exactly hold a fire sale for it either. At $150 million, it’s the most expensive home for sale in the U.S. Coldwell Banker Previews International in Los Angeles is co-listing the luxurious property, which should land the commission of a lifetime for Coldwell agent Sally Forster Jones. Of course, your potential clientele is limited with a $150 million price tag: elite athletes with massive endorsement deals, studio heads, top-notch actors and of course, foreign drug lords. All of these people can pony up the cash for a three-story mansion built in 1991, featuring a gate around the perimeter of the property, a winding driveway and ceilings that reach up to 30 feet high. One potential upside is that once inside, you may never have to leave, not with 100 rooms, including a bowling alley, wine cellar, wine tasting room, gift-wrapping room, a humidity-controlled silver storage room, China room, library, gym and a media room. Oh, and there’s also a 17,000 square-foot attic that includes a barber shop and beauty salon, and a wing for service staff, including a kitchen and seven bedrooms, and five fireplaces and four wet bars. Parking is never a concern, not with 16 car ports and a winding motor court with space for more than 100 cars. Should you actually want to venture outside, you can also take advantage of a tennis court, fountains, a waterfall, a pool and spa, a reflection pool and a pool house with a kitchen. Possible downsides….finding a way to pay for all the energy you’ll need to use to run the place? But I guess if you’re that rich, you’ve found a way to live with your ginormous impact on the environment because of conspicuous consumption of energy and also have ample resources to pay for it. Don’t feel bad for Candy Spelling, either; she’s moving into a luxurious two-story condo atop a residential tower in Los Angeles that she bought last year for $47 million. I’m sure she’ll be very happy there, since she took the utmost care in selecting the real estate agent who found her new pad. Oh wait, no she didn’t. She apparently let her dog Madison, a soft-coated Wheaten Terrier, help pick out the real estate agent by having her security bring the dog into the room every time she met one of the candidate agents and watched how the dog reacted. Well done, Candy. Hopefully Madison can also help Sally Forster Jones evaluate potential buyers, bite the ones she doesn’t like and pee on the shoes of the winning bidder……
- Instead of “bring ‘em out” for rapper T.I., it’s “lock ‘em up” time. The rapper, whose real name is Clifford Harris, was sentenced in Atlanta federal court Friday to one year and one day in prison and ordered to pay a $100,300 fine on weapons charges related to purchasing machine guns and silencers. The terms of the sentence were spelled out in a plea agreement T.I. and his legal team reached with prosecutors last year. “I would like to say thank you to some, and apologize to others,” Harris said at his sentencing. “In my life, I have been placed in the worst-case scenario and had to make the best of it. Most often, things I have learned have been from trial and error. I knew no way to protect myself than to arm myself.” Now it’s time to learn a new way of life, a life that will begin after what I’d expect to be less than the one year and one day behind bars. With good behavior, expect T.I. to be brought out of prison at least a few weeks early. When that happens, he will also have to deal with other parts of his plea agreement that include property forfeiture, supervised release for three years after his prison sentence, 365 days of home confinement and 1,500 hours of community service. He has already served 305 days of home confinement and 1,030 hours of service, so only 60 days of home confinement to go and 470 hours of community service up ahead. Additionally, Harris must undergo DNA testing and drug counseling, cannot own firearms and must submit to reasonable searches and a financial audit. Key in the plea deal and lenient sentence Harris received was the support from notable public figures, including former Atlanta Mayor and U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young. Young spoke on behalf of Harris, saying he regarded working with Harris not so much as a chance to help him but more as "an opportunity for him to help me." Bishop Eddie Long of the New Birth Baptist Church also spoke in support of Harris after he and Harris went to a hospital for paraplegics in New York. Other portions of Harris’ community service included mentoring at-risk students at 58 schools, 12 Boys & Girls Clubs, nine churches and many other nonprofit organizations. Oh, and he also served his own cause during his year awaiting sentencing (part of his plea deal), releasing his sixth CD, "Paper Trail," which has sold close to 2 million copies. Prison should give him a nice bump of street cred and boost album sales, too. Harris also made use of his year of freedom to star in the MTV reality show, "T.I.'s Road to Redemption: 45 Days to Go," which chronicles his efforts to shave years off his sentence by completing his community service. On the show, he has spoken to schools and community groups "about how to avoid the trouble he now finds himself in.” Not exactly the sort of project Harris probably thought he’d be starring in after rising from the streets of Atlanta to become one of the biggest names in the hi-hop game, starring in the film "ATL" and appearing in Chevy commercials with NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. In 2006, he was named to the Forbes list of top-earning rappers after making an estimated $16 million. All of that changed when he was arrested in October 2007 in an Atlanta parking lot hours before he was to perform at the BET Hip Hop Awards. That arrest came after he was caught in a federal sting after his bodyguard-turned-informant delivered three machine guns and two silencers to him. not exactly that sort of behavior you’d hope for, giving your bodyguard $12,000 to buy illegal weapons after being convicted in 1998 on felony drug charges -- possession of crack cocaine with intent to distribute -- in Cobb County. Will the T.I. who emerges from prison some time in the next year be a permanently changed man? I’ll remain skeptical on that but hope for the best……
- I’ve been asking myself for some time now how to go about scoring myself a sweet new endorsement deal and no one has quite been able to provide a satisfactory answer. I now know that I should have been directing my questions to French pole vaulting champion Romain Mesnil all along. Seeing what Mesnil did in his attempts to secure a new endorsement deal, I clearly see that he has a true understanding of what it takes to get the job done. Mesnil, who won a silver medal at the 2007 Athletics World Championships in Osaka, ran naked with his pole through the streets of Paris in an attempt to draw attention to his quest for a new sponsorship deal. He then posted the video on the Internet, hoping to get the word out globally. After being sponsored by Nike but having his contract expired last year and not be renewed, Mesnil was left searching for options. "It was probably for budgetary and strategic reasons. It's the crisis," he wrote on his Web site of Nike’s decision. Whatever the case, I like what he’s doing to solve the problem. Many athletes are having difficulties obtaining corporate sponsorship as companies cut costs because of the global economic downturn, but I don’t know of any other athletes willing to take off all their clothes and streak through the streets of one of the world’s most famous cities. In his video, Mesnil runs with his pole as if preparing for a vault at tourist spots like Montmartre and the Pont des Arts across the River Seine. In the video, a black square has been added to the footage to cover his groin area, but the effect is still there. So far, the stunt has drawn some attention for Mesnil’s plight. It was broadcast on prime-time state television news bulletins, but no word on whether any endorsement offers are rolling in. What will be rolling in soon is my phone call to Mesnil, because we need to sit down and do a little brainstorming for my own similar stunt…..
- Rarely (see here “never”) do I root for the legal system, but I may have to make an exception to my rule in the case of Inez M. Starks, an Eastpointe (Mich.) woman who actually had the chutzpah to file a lawsuit in which a FREAKING POLICE DOG WAS NAMED AS A DEFENDANT. Starks sued after allegedly being bitten by the German shepherd April 7, 2007, outside of her daughter's home during a confrontation between police, her daughter and others. Starks said she was bitten when police went to the home after receiving a truancy complaint against Stark's daughter involving her daughter's child. The situation soon turned into a two-for-one for the cops when they found the woman's brother, who had an outstanding warrant. Unfortunately, the man fled and the dog was brought in to chase him down. That’s when Starks, who was living across the street from her daughter at the time, said she came over. She claims a fight had broken out and because she had to put her nose where it didn’t belong, she thrust herself into harm’s way. If you believe her version of the story, the dog bit her soon after she crossed the street. Furthermore, Starks claims that she was bitten on her right buttock and that the bite caused damage to her sacroiliac nerve, impairing her ability to walk and keeping her in pain. However, police at the scene reported no evidence on Starks’ person to prove that she had been bitten. The conspiracy theorist in me (and the law enforcement hater) would love to accuse the police of lying and fudging the report, but to be honest, Inez Starks doesn’t strike me as being all that bright or truthful. Judge David Viviano seems to agree with me, because he fined Starks $500 for frivolously naming the dog as a defendant in her lawsuit and another $500 for failing to appear in Macomb County Circuit Court for a February hearing. Memo to you, Inez: if you file a lawsuit, no matter how frivolous, you need to show up in court for all of the hearings. Suing the city and several police officers are cool in my book any day of the week, but including the dog was ridiculous at best and not showing up is just bush league. Now, you must pay the $1,000 fine by April 13 or her case will be dismissed. Paying the fine means throwing away $1,000 on a case you don’t have a prayer of winning and not paying it means looking like a chump and having the suit dismissed. Game over for you, Inez. Next time have a freaking clue what you’re doing before you go filing lawsuits against cities, cops and dogs……
- Aaron Spelling’s passing in 2006 was a sad occasion for his Hollywood friends and family, but now that he’s gone, his widow must figure out what to do with his luxurious mansion, dubbed "The Manor" and located in the exclusive Holmby Hills neighborhood of sunny Southern California. After some deliberation, Candy Spelling has decided to sell the mansion - for a whopping $150 million, that is. She’s in a tough spot, to be sure, but I guess you have to do what you have to do. On one hand, the Southern California housing market is in the crapper (like most places in the United States), so getting that steep asking price is going to be next to impossible. On the other hand, when you’re holding a French chateau-style mansion with 56,500 square feet of space on more than 4.6 acres that is the largest home in Los Angeles County, you don’t exactly hold a fire sale for it either. At $150 million, it’s the most expensive home for sale in the U.S. Coldwell Banker Previews International in Los Angeles is co-listing the luxurious property, which should land the commission of a lifetime for Coldwell agent Sally Forster Jones. Of course, your potential clientele is limited with a $150 million price tag: elite athletes with massive endorsement deals, studio heads, top-notch actors and of course, foreign drug lords. All of these people can pony up the cash for a three-story mansion built in 1991, featuring a gate around the perimeter of the property, a winding driveway and ceilings that reach up to 30 feet high. One potential upside is that once inside, you may never have to leave, not with 100 rooms, including a bowling alley, wine cellar, wine tasting room, gift-wrapping room, a humidity-controlled silver storage room, China room, library, gym and a media room. Oh, and there’s also a 17,000 square-foot attic that includes a barber shop and beauty salon, and a wing for service staff, including a kitchen and seven bedrooms, and five fireplaces and four wet bars. Parking is never a concern, not with 16 car ports and a winding motor court with space for more than 100 cars. Should you actually want to venture outside, you can also take advantage of a tennis court, fountains, a waterfall, a pool and spa, a reflection pool and a pool house with a kitchen. Possible downsides….finding a way to pay for all the energy you’ll need to use to run the place? But I guess if you’re that rich, you’ve found a way to live with your ginormous impact on the environment because of conspicuous consumption of energy and also have ample resources to pay for it. Don’t feel bad for Candy Spelling, either; she’s moving into a luxurious two-story condo atop a residential tower in Los Angeles that she bought last year for $47 million. I’m sure she’ll be very happy there, since she took the utmost care in selecting the real estate agent who found her new pad. Oh wait, no she didn’t. She apparently let her dog Madison, a soft-coated Wheaten Terrier, help pick out the real estate agent by having her security bring the dog into the room every time she met one of the candidate agents and watched how the dog reacted. Well done, Candy. Hopefully Madison can also help Sally Forster Jones evaluate potential buyers, bite the ones she doesn’t like and pee on the shoes of the winning bidder……
- Instead of “bring ‘em out” for rapper T.I., it’s “lock ‘em up” time. The rapper, whose real name is Clifford Harris, was sentenced in Atlanta federal court Friday to one year and one day in prison and ordered to pay a $100,300 fine on weapons charges related to purchasing machine guns and silencers. The terms of the sentence were spelled out in a plea agreement T.I. and his legal team reached with prosecutors last year. “I would like to say thank you to some, and apologize to others,” Harris said at his sentencing. “In my life, I have been placed in the worst-case scenario and had to make the best of it. Most often, things I have learned have been from trial and error. I knew no way to protect myself than to arm myself.” Now it’s time to learn a new way of life, a life that will begin after what I’d expect to be less than the one year and one day behind bars. With good behavior, expect T.I. to be brought out of prison at least a few weeks early. When that happens, he will also have to deal with other parts of his plea agreement that include property forfeiture, supervised release for three years after his prison sentence, 365 days of home confinement and 1,500 hours of community service. He has already served 305 days of home confinement and 1,030 hours of service, so only 60 days of home confinement to go and 470 hours of community service up ahead. Additionally, Harris must undergo DNA testing and drug counseling, cannot own firearms and must submit to reasonable searches and a financial audit. Key in the plea deal and lenient sentence Harris received was the support from notable public figures, including former Atlanta Mayor and U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young. Young spoke on behalf of Harris, saying he regarded working with Harris not so much as a chance to help him but more as "an opportunity for him to help me." Bishop Eddie Long of the New Birth Baptist Church also spoke in support of Harris after he and Harris went to a hospital for paraplegics in New York. Other portions of Harris’ community service included mentoring at-risk students at 58 schools, 12 Boys & Girls Clubs, nine churches and many other nonprofit organizations. Oh, and he also served his own cause during his year awaiting sentencing (part of his plea deal), releasing his sixth CD, "Paper Trail," which has sold close to 2 million copies. Prison should give him a nice bump of street cred and boost album sales, too. Harris also made use of his year of freedom to star in the MTV reality show, "T.I.'s Road to Redemption: 45 Days to Go," which chronicles his efforts to shave years off his sentence by completing his community service. On the show, he has spoken to schools and community groups "about how to avoid the trouble he now finds himself in.” Not exactly the sort of project Harris probably thought he’d be starring in after rising from the streets of Atlanta to become one of the biggest names in the hi-hop game, starring in the film "ATL" and appearing in Chevy commercials with NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. In 2006, he was named to the Forbes list of top-earning rappers after making an estimated $16 million. All of that changed when he was arrested in October 2007 in an Atlanta parking lot hours before he was to perform at the BET Hip Hop Awards. That arrest came after he was caught in a federal sting after his bodyguard-turned-informant delivered three machine guns and two silencers to him. not exactly that sort of behavior you’d hope for, giving your bodyguard $12,000 to buy illegal weapons after being convicted in 1998 on felony drug charges -- possession of crack cocaine with intent to distribute -- in Cobb County. Will the T.I. who emerges from prison some time in the next year be a permanently changed man? I’ll remain skeptical on that but hope for the best……
- I’ve been asking myself for some time now how to go about scoring myself a sweet new endorsement deal and no one has quite been able to provide a satisfactory answer. I now know that I should have been directing my questions to French pole vaulting champion Romain Mesnil all along. Seeing what Mesnil did in his attempts to secure a new endorsement deal, I clearly see that he has a true understanding of what it takes to get the job done. Mesnil, who won a silver medal at the 2007 Athletics World Championships in Osaka, ran naked with his pole through the streets of Paris in an attempt to draw attention to his quest for a new sponsorship deal. He then posted the video on the Internet, hoping to get the word out globally. After being sponsored by Nike but having his contract expired last year and not be renewed, Mesnil was left searching for options. "It was probably for budgetary and strategic reasons. It's the crisis," he wrote on his Web site of Nike’s decision. Whatever the case, I like what he’s doing to solve the problem. Many athletes are having difficulties obtaining corporate sponsorship as companies cut costs because of the global economic downturn, but I don’t know of any other athletes willing to take off all their clothes and streak through the streets of one of the world’s most famous cities. In his video, Mesnil runs with his pole as if preparing for a vault at tourist spots like Montmartre and the Pont des Arts across the River Seine. In the video, a black square has been added to the footage to cover his groin area, but the effect is still there. So far, the stunt has drawn some attention for Mesnil’s plight. It was broadcast on prime-time state television news bulletins, but no word on whether any endorsement offers are rolling in. What will be rolling in soon is my phone call to Mesnil, because we need to sit down and do a little brainstorming for my own similar stunt…..
Saturday, March 28, 2009
No good Samaritans in one Massachusetts town, T.O. whines like a baby and the world turns off its lights together
- If you noticed lights all around your neighborhood or city going off tonight at about 8:30, don’t worry about some sort of bizarre power outage striking your area. That was more than likely just the local incarnation of a worldwide event known as Earth Hour. For the third straight year, lights went off across the world Saturday as millions of homes and businesses went dark for one hour in a symbolic gesture highlighting concerns over climate change. According to event organizers, more than 2,800 cities and towns worldwide dimmed their lights at 8:30 p.m. local time for the third annual Earth Hour -- a day-long energy-saving marathon spanning 83 countries and 24 time zones. This wasn’t just in small towns or suburbs, either;
major cities in the United States, Asia, the Middle East and Europe had already gone dark for the event by Saturday night on the U.S. East Coast. In Washington, the lights of the Capitol dome were shut down and in New York the Empire State Building, Central Park and the George Washington Bridge went dark. Over in Asia, the Philippines carried the banner for the event with more than 650 communities taking part. In England, the light illuminating the face of the landmark Big Ben clock tower was turned off. All of this began in 2007, when Sydney, Australia became the birthplace of the Earth Hour campaign with 2.2 million people turning off their lights. This year, the movement got a nice dose of irony when the Chinese - whose cities comprise three-fourths of the 20 most polluted cities in the world - turned off lights at major buildings including the "Bird's Nest" Olympic Stadium and the Water Cube. Thanks for that, China, now we ALL believe that you are truly serious about the envir- cough, hack….cough, cough - the envior- hack, hack, wheeze….never mind. Even with the hypocritical Chinese participation, the World Wildlife Fund did get a solid turnout for this event. When famous landmarks around the world, including the Egyptian pyramids, Vatican, Niagara Falls, the Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building, the Acropolis in Athens and the Las Vegas casino strip, all take part in an event, that’s a big thing. Not that people turning off their lights means they’re going to make significant changes to their lives and to the way they use energy, but I guess you can’t be too greedy in what you ask for……
- All of those investigative stories on your local news about the dangers of thieves stealing your bags at the airport aren’t just false fear after all. Maybe if people flying through Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport had paid attention to those stories and the warnings that accompany them, Patrick Brown, of Farmers Branch, Tex. would not have been able to steal more than 400 bags from passengers at the airport. According to police, Brown operated right out in the open, taking one bag here and stealing another there, many of them right in front of unsuspecting passengers. “He freely admitted to taking over 400 bags," said Lt. Lonnie Freeman of the airport’s Public Safety department. "This guy accounts for probably more than half of our baggage thefts we've had out here,” said Alan Black, vice president of D/FW Airport Public Safety. “It's a little mini-crime wave that's really come to an end." But Brown was an equal-opportunity thief and he didn’t just touch up careless idiots at D/FW. He also worked the crowd at Houston's Bush Intercontinental Airport and stole 200 bags there, along with a smaller number of thefts at the airport in Tulsa. On average, police said, he stole three bags a day between July 2008 and January 2009. His style was to wait at the baggage claim carousel, watch for bags s that circled the carousel at least once and grab them. Once he snagged the bags, Brown kept them inside a storage unit in Irving. He sifted through their contents, sold any valuable items at Trader's Village in Grand Prairie and sell the bags separately. His fatal mistake came last December, when he sold a piece of luggage to the store and left a luggage tag inside. The person who bought the bag found the tag, called the Milwaukee man whose name was on it and then tipped off police. Brown’s explanation for the thefts was simple; it was an easy way to make money. Of course, it’s also an easy way to face 20 years in prison, which is what Brown could get if convicted of the third degree felony charge he faces. Bottom line here, as always, pay attention to your bags when traveling and when your flight lands, book it to the baggage carousel at top speed…….
- I’d say I feel bad for the ultimate me-first athlete, Terrell Owens, when he claims that he was "blindsided" by his release from the Dallas Cowboys, but I’d be lying. Owens may have told Rogers Sportsnet, a Canadian television channel, that he never saw the move coming and that may even be true, but how can you feel anything but happy at that revelation? Owens, more than any other athlete of his generation, is all about himself and does things without giving a damn who is affected or how. He opens his mouth and says ignorant, self-aggrandizing and offensive things and doenst give a second thought to who might be blindsided or hurt. So if team owner Jerry Jones told T.O. that he would remain with the Cowboys and then reversed field, so what? "You hear all the speculation, and you talk to the owner of the team, and he reassures you, you're not going anywhere and then, out of left-field & you get blindsided," Owens said. Oh freaking well, T.O. If you couldn’t look at that bloated, ill-advised four-year contract extension you signed with Dallas last summer, factor in your impact as a growing distraction off the field with your declining production on it and realize that you might be released, I don’t know what to tell you. Besides, how bad can anyone feel for you when you signed a one-year, $6.5 million contract with Buffalo? You’re employed, you’re making a boatload of money and I can all but guarantee that you’ll pull your same destructive, me-first act in your new town this season. Nice of you to try and sow seeds of dissent in Big D even after you left, alleging that the decision to release you was not completely made by Jones. “I know whole-heartedly he wanted me there," Owens said. "There were some people I know who got in his ear that pressured him to make that decision. For that, it's sad. You let two or three people conspire to get me out of the situation.” No, it’s not sad T.O. It’s a smart business decision and one that will make the Cowboys a better, more cohesive and less fractious team this season……
- Political censorship is omnipresent in Africa, making filmmaking a near-impossible art form to carry out. But an interesting trend is growing to help aspiring filmmakers find a way around those government bans and red tape. While toting around video cameras might be out of the question, resourceful African filmmakers are using cell phones as an unobtrusive, covert way to get footage without being discovered. At least one great film has already come out of this new tactic: "Voiture en Carton" ("Cardboard Car"), a film by Kiripi Katembo Siku, an art school student from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Shot entirely on his cell phone, the movie looks inside street-life in Kinshasa, the country's capital. The video quality may not be stellar, but with omnipresent government censorship restricting the every move of would-be filmmakers, you can't quibble with how good the video is. Rather, admire the ingenious plan Siku devised to make his dream a reality. He attached his cell phone to a toy car, set it to film, and gave it to a young girl to pull behind her on a piece of string as she walked through the streets of Kinshasa. The film is seven minutes long and is a bit uneven at times because the toy car stops, starts and upends a number of times and has to be righted by Siku's young camerawoman. Even so, it gives viewers a frank, gritty look at life in the city and the awful conditions in which many people live. You have to imagine that films like Siku’s don’t sit well with government officials who try to keep the rampant poverty and corruption in their country quiet. To that end, they issue virtually no filming permits and treat anyone trying to film without one harshly. "[They] try and stop stories of corruption from coming out by refusing accreditation to locals from the Ministry of Information. That's the way they weed out people who will be critical to government," says Salim Amin, Chairman of Kenya-based African news organization, Africa 24 Media. Those with the kahones to defy the authorities and shoot without permission usually incur hefty fines, arrest, or worse. Because of those restrictions, people like French filmmaker Marie-Dominique Dhelsing are offering workshops for aspiring filmmakers like Siku to help them understand how to use cell phones as movie-making tools. “After her course here in Kinshasa I fell in love with directing, editing and working in a team," Siku declared. I have an incredible level of respect and admiration for Siki, Dhelsing and anyone like them who so willingly stands up to an oppressive, brutal government to tell the truth on film………
- Never, ever accuse motorists in and around Middleborough, Mass. of being good Samaritans. If they were, dozens of them wouldn’t have sat idly by (or driven by at high speeds) as a woman was viciously attacked in broad daylight Friday afternoon on a heavily traveled road. The woman pulled over to the side of the road on Route 28 in Middleborough after a fender bender when the other driver involved in the accident attacked her and began a brutal assault that lasted for more than 10 minutes. This attack occurred in broad daylight at about 4:30 p.m., but other drivers passed by without stopping. The woman was knocked unconscious, brutalized and sexually assaulted, but not a single soul stopped to help her. “She was definitely violently assaulted,” said Middleborough police Lt. Charles Armanetti. Surveillance video from a nearby gas station confirms that hypothesis, with footage showing the victim driving on Route 28, followed by what police believe to be the attacker's car. Minutes later, the woman's car was bumped from behind and when she pulled over, the man got out of his car and began the attack. “Within that 12-minute time frame, in heavy traffic, this individual got out of his car and attacked the woman,” Armanetti said. “At that point she went unconscious, and that's all she remembers.” By the time police arrived, the man and his car were gone, and the woman was found unconscious. Thankfully she was revived and taken to a hospital, but sadly only one person did a single thing to help and even that came after the fact, as a driver who stopped to help after the man had left called 911. Because of that total lack of concern, care, decency and integrity from those who passed by without stopping, the attacker is still at large. He is described as a white man in a dark, zippered coat driving a dark-colored sedan, but hopefully the police don’t expect any help from the public in tracking him down…..
major cities in the United States, Asia, the Middle East and Europe had already gone dark for the event by Saturday night on the U.S. East Coast. In Washington, the lights of the Capitol dome were shut down and in New York the Empire State Building, Central Park and the George Washington Bridge went dark. Over in Asia, the Philippines carried the banner for the event with more than 650 communities taking part. In England, the light illuminating the face of the landmark Big Ben clock tower was turned off. All of this began in 2007, when Sydney, Australia became the birthplace of the Earth Hour campaign with 2.2 million people turning off their lights. This year, the movement got a nice dose of irony when the Chinese - whose cities comprise three-fourths of the 20 most polluted cities in the world - turned off lights at major buildings including the "Bird's Nest" Olympic Stadium and the Water Cube. Thanks for that, China, now we ALL believe that you are truly serious about the envir- cough, hack….cough, cough - the envior- hack, hack, wheeze….never mind. Even with the hypocritical Chinese participation, the World Wildlife Fund did get a solid turnout for this event. When famous landmarks around the world, including the Egyptian pyramids, Vatican, Niagara Falls, the Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building, the Acropolis in Athens and the Las Vegas casino strip, all take part in an event, that’s a big thing. Not that people turning off their lights means they’re going to make significant changes to their lives and to the way they use energy, but I guess you can’t be too greedy in what you ask for……
- All of those investigative stories on your local news about the dangers of thieves stealing your bags at the airport aren’t just false fear after all. Maybe if people flying through Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport had paid attention to those stories and the warnings that accompany them, Patrick Brown, of Farmers Branch, Tex. would not have been able to steal more than 400 bags from passengers at the airport. According to police, Brown operated right out in the open, taking one bag here and stealing another there, many of them right in front of unsuspecting passengers. “He freely admitted to taking over 400 bags," said Lt. Lonnie Freeman of the airport’s Public Safety department. "This guy accounts for probably more than half of our baggage thefts we've had out here,” said Alan Black, vice president of D/FW Airport Public Safety. “It's a little mini-crime wave that's really come to an end." But Brown was an equal-opportunity thief and he didn’t just touch up careless idiots at D/FW. He also worked the crowd at Houston's Bush Intercontinental Airport and stole 200 bags there, along with a smaller number of thefts at the airport in Tulsa. On average, police said, he stole three bags a day between July 2008 and January 2009. His style was to wait at the baggage claim carousel, watch for bags s that circled the carousel at least once and grab them. Once he snagged the bags, Brown kept them inside a storage unit in Irving. He sifted through their contents, sold any valuable items at Trader's Village in Grand Prairie and sell the bags separately. His fatal mistake came last December, when he sold a piece of luggage to the store and left a luggage tag inside. The person who bought the bag found the tag, called the Milwaukee man whose name was on it and then tipped off police. Brown’s explanation for the thefts was simple; it was an easy way to make money. Of course, it’s also an easy way to face 20 years in prison, which is what Brown could get if convicted of the third degree felony charge he faces. Bottom line here, as always, pay attention to your bags when traveling and when your flight lands, book it to the baggage carousel at top speed…….
- I’d say I feel bad for the ultimate me-first athlete, Terrell Owens, when he claims that he was "blindsided" by his release from the Dallas Cowboys, but I’d be lying. Owens may have told Rogers Sportsnet, a Canadian television channel, that he never saw the move coming and that may even be true, but how can you feel anything but happy at that revelation? Owens, more than any other athlete of his generation, is all about himself and does things without giving a damn who is affected or how. He opens his mouth and says ignorant, self-aggrandizing and offensive things and doenst give a second thought to who might be blindsided or hurt. So if team owner Jerry Jones told T.O. that he would remain with the Cowboys and then reversed field, so what? "You hear all the speculation, and you talk to the owner of the team, and he reassures you, you're not going anywhere and then, out of left-field & you get blindsided," Owens said. Oh freaking well, T.O. If you couldn’t look at that bloated, ill-advised four-year contract extension you signed with Dallas last summer, factor in your impact as a growing distraction off the field with your declining production on it and realize that you might be released, I don’t know what to tell you. Besides, how bad can anyone feel for you when you signed a one-year, $6.5 million contract with Buffalo? You’re employed, you’re making a boatload of money and I can all but guarantee that you’ll pull your same destructive, me-first act in your new town this season. Nice of you to try and sow seeds of dissent in Big D even after you left, alleging that the decision to release you was not completely made by Jones. “I know whole-heartedly he wanted me there," Owens said. "There were some people I know who got in his ear that pressured him to make that decision. For that, it's sad. You let two or three people conspire to get me out of the situation.” No, it’s not sad T.O. It’s a smart business decision and one that will make the Cowboys a better, more cohesive and less fractious team this season……
- Political censorship is omnipresent in Africa, making filmmaking a near-impossible art form to carry out. But an interesting trend is growing to help aspiring filmmakers find a way around those government bans and red tape. While toting around video cameras might be out of the question, resourceful African filmmakers are using cell phones as an unobtrusive, covert way to get footage without being discovered. At least one great film has already come out of this new tactic: "Voiture en Carton" ("Cardboard Car"), a film by Kiripi Katembo Siku, an art school student from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Shot entirely on his cell phone, the movie looks inside street-life in Kinshasa, the country's capital. The video quality may not be stellar, but with omnipresent government censorship restricting the every move of would-be filmmakers, you can't quibble with how good the video is. Rather, admire the ingenious plan Siku devised to make his dream a reality. He attached his cell phone to a toy car, set it to film, and gave it to a young girl to pull behind her on a piece of string as she walked through the streets of Kinshasa. The film is seven minutes long and is a bit uneven at times because the toy car stops, starts and upends a number of times and has to be righted by Siku's young camerawoman. Even so, it gives viewers a frank, gritty look at life in the city and the awful conditions in which many people live. You have to imagine that films like Siku’s don’t sit well with government officials who try to keep the rampant poverty and corruption in their country quiet. To that end, they issue virtually no filming permits and treat anyone trying to film without one harshly. "[They] try and stop stories of corruption from coming out by refusing accreditation to locals from the Ministry of Information. That's the way they weed out people who will be critical to government," says Salim Amin, Chairman of Kenya-based African news organization, Africa 24 Media. Those with the kahones to defy the authorities and shoot without permission usually incur hefty fines, arrest, or worse. Because of those restrictions, people like French filmmaker Marie-Dominique Dhelsing are offering workshops for aspiring filmmakers like Siku to help them understand how to use cell phones as movie-making tools. “After her course here in Kinshasa I fell in love with directing, editing and working in a team," Siku declared. I have an incredible level of respect and admiration for Siki, Dhelsing and anyone like them who so willingly stands up to an oppressive, brutal government to tell the truth on film………
- Never, ever accuse motorists in and around Middleborough, Mass. of being good Samaritans. If they were, dozens of them wouldn’t have sat idly by (or driven by at high speeds) as a woman was viciously attacked in broad daylight Friday afternoon on a heavily traveled road. The woman pulled over to the side of the road on Route 28 in Middleborough after a fender bender when the other driver involved in the accident attacked her and began a brutal assault that lasted for more than 10 minutes. This attack occurred in broad daylight at about 4:30 p.m., but other drivers passed by without stopping. The woman was knocked unconscious, brutalized and sexually assaulted, but not a single soul stopped to help her. “She was definitely violently assaulted,” said Middleborough police Lt. Charles Armanetti. Surveillance video from a nearby gas station confirms that hypothesis, with footage showing the victim driving on Route 28, followed by what police believe to be the attacker's car. Minutes later, the woman's car was bumped from behind and when she pulled over, the man got out of his car and began the attack. “Within that 12-minute time frame, in heavy traffic, this individual got out of his car and attacked the woman,” Armanetti said. “At that point she went unconscious, and that's all she remembers.” By the time police arrived, the man and his car were gone, and the woman was found unconscious. Thankfully she was revived and taken to a hospital, but sadly only one person did a single thing to help and even that came after the fact, as a driver who stopped to help after the man had left called 911. Because of that total lack of concern, care, decency and integrity from those who passed by without stopping, the attacker is still at large. He is described as a white man in a dark, zippered coat driving a dark-colored sedan, but hopefully the police don’t expect any help from the public in tracking him down…..
Friday, March 27, 2009
One rabid hockey fan goes knucklehead, terrible TV ratings news Riot Watch!: G-20 summit edition
- Have you been looking to buy your own charming English village? If so, may I present the village of Linkenholt, tucked quaintly in the hills of Hampshire. This quintessential English village, complete with grand Edwardian manor house, cricket pavilion and grounds, blacksmith's forge, rectory, shooting grounds, 22 houses and grade 2 listed cottages, is on the market for a mere $33 million. For that bargain price, current owner Herbert Blagrave, an English cricketer, will sell you the town and you’ll also get the 50 resident of Linkenholt. However, the town church is not included in the sale, so if that’s a deal-breaker for you, you’ll need to look elsewhere. Technically, Blagrave’s trust owns the village and the trust says though it wants to free up the capital tied up in the estate so it can give more to charity on an annual basis. The realtor shopping the village touts it as not only a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but also a solid investment. “Big time investors will look upon it as a safe haven to place their money because in five years you're going to see a great deal of appreciation here, so this is perfect," the company promises. Not only that, the new owner could also take away a significant income from the rent of the houses. So far, there have been interested parties both loically and internationally, although the villages’ trustees hope that even if an outsider buys their town,
“ the new owner will continue to run it in the same manner" as it has been for the past 200 years. To that end, provisions have been made by the trust to ensure the houses are not sold off in the near future, with only the manor house to be vacant for the new owner. Some villagers have definite opinions on who their new landlord should be. Village thatcher Paul Raynsford declared, "I'd sooner not see a banker or someone who's going to asset strip it. I'd like to see a film star, pop star, footballer, someone who just wants to buy it so they can say 'I'm the lord of the manor.'" Interesting…..you want a vapid, rich, famous person who has no interest in actually having anything to do with your village be the one to buy it. I’d consider making the purchase myself, but I have my eye on a slightly larger village, say 100-200 people at least. Best of success to you, though, people of Linkenholt, in finding someone to buy your town. Let me know how it turns out for you…..
- I have a new hero and his name is Mike Lynch, a Bellevue, Wash. resident who tried to pay a traffic ticket from Portland, Ore. by sending a plastic bag filled with $206 worth of urine-soaked coins to a county billing office. After being stopped and cited for speeding in a construction zone, Lynch clearly wasn’t happy with the elevated fine due to the infraction occurring in a construction zone. Thus, he decided on a two-pronged rebuttal for the offense; first, collecting enough coins to use for the fine and second, giving those coins a nice golden shower. He wrapped the package nice and tight and sent the money to Portland, but because he did such a good job wrapping it no one knew what was inside until it was opened. The package didn’t smell and until county employees opened it, they had no idea what was coming. Unfortunately, there is a county policy of only accepting up to $20 in change, so court workers returned the money to Lynch. What’s great about this, in spite of the return-to-sender ending, is that Lynch is in no trouble for mailing urine-soaked coins to pay his ticket. Postal officials said it is legal to mail urine or other bodily fluids as long as they are packaged properly in a way that doesn't leak or smell. Honestly….the one thing that pisses me off is that I didn’t come up with this idea first. Well done, Mike Lynch. Thankfully, not everyone is as clueless as Sgt. Phil Anderchuk of the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office, who just can't figure out why anyone would commit such an awesome act. “That's something I can't wrap my mind around," said. "The thought process of acting consciously -- consummating the act of urinating in a box full of coins that someone is going to receive.” Allow me to help you out, sergeant. Cops are smug, condescending a-holes with unjustified superiority complexes who ruin people’s days and lives by handing out traffic citations. When people get these citations, they’re pissed and while most of us wouldn’t do something like what Mike Lynch did, most of us have thought about it. It doesn’t even matter if I agree with Lynch’s contention that “doubling a fine because the infraction occurred in a 'work zone' where no one was working is unfair, at best.” All that matters is that I LOVE his idea of sending his payment in urine-soaked coins as a political statement "to the unfairness of the situation." Even if his payment wasn’t accepted because of a technicality, the spirit of what he did is everything that makes America great and I salute him for it……
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Are those the sounds of an open challenge I hear emanating from the London police? As the po-po’s in London prepare for their city’s hosting of G-20 summit next week, they claim to be planning one of the largest and most complex operations in their history. London's three police forces are being brought under a single umbrella for the G-20 security plan, dubbed Operation Glencoe, said Cmdr. Simon O'Brien of London's Metropolitan Police. The LMP will be assisted by police forces from surrounding counties like Essex and Sussex in protecting the summit venue, delegates, their hotels, their official engagements, as well as monitoring protests around the capital. With some 10,500 police shifts being scheduled between March 24 and April 2, O’Brien feels pretty confident that all protests and would-be riots will be kept in check. We will not tolerate any people breaking the law, attacking buildings, people, or our officers," he said. Riiight. Like I said at the start, that’s an open freaking challenge to rioters and social dissidents everywhere, because I think we all know how much sheer joy and exuberance comes from the very activities you’re looking to shut down. You may be spending $10.4 million on security, but don’t think for one second you can break the spirit of protest the courses so strongly through the veins of riot lovers ‘round the world. When you bring together heads of state and financial leaders from the top 20 industrialized and emerging economies and leaders from non-G-20 nations as well, you can bet that there will be no shortage of groups looking to make their voice heard. Tomorrow, the first big protest of the weekend is scheduled. Police expect some 20,000 people to turn out for the "Put People First" march, which will start at Victoria Station, wind through Trafalgar Square, and end in a demonstration at Hyde Park. Approximately 120 groups will be represented in this particular march, which is expected to take place even if the heavy rain that is predicted for Saturday comes through town. I have to say, I like the dubbing of the summit "Financial Fools Day," what with the event taking place on April 2, one day after April Fool’s Day. On April 1, there are multiple smaller demonstrations scheduled in central London. I know this goes without saying, but I am rooting for each and every protestor who takes to the streets during these next few days. All of you are a part of something amazing, no matter how big or small your protest is. Whether the rumors about plans to storm important buildings like the Bank of England are true or not, I know you all will come up with something truly memorable. And if at any point you feel your energy and enthusiasm for your protest waning, remember the arrogant, defiant words of Cmdr. Simon O'Brien of London's Metropolitan Police and use them as motivation to kick it up a notch and get violent and confrontational……
- America, I am once again incredibly, incredibly ashamed of you. Looking at the television ratings from Wednesday night, I’m equally saddened, horrified and angered. To understand why, look no further than the 8 p.m. time slot, where American Karaoke averaged 25.6 million total viewers over its two-hour run, up 19 percent from last week's (Tuesday) sing-off and a 3 percent increase from the comparable night a year ago. Yes, 25.6 million of you turned into an overrated, musically poisonous karaoke show featuring a tip-frosting, man-blouse-wearing host and a dozen wannabe karaoke stars singing horribly butchered versions of songs that weren’t that good to begin with. The closest competition for AK was a Survivor clip show that placed a distant second with 8.15 million. I did get a slight confidence boost from the ratings for ABC’s new, terrible and destined-to-be-canceled-soon comedy Better Off Ted, which garnered a mere 4.7 million viewers, down 16 percent from the previous week. It shows that you all are capable of learning and recognizing a terrible, lame-ass comedy when you see one. Another show having a bad night was America’s Next Top Runway Bimbo, er, Top Model which saw its ratings plunge 21 percent and landed just 2.85 million viewers. Oh, and possibly even more horrifying and maddening than AK drawing in so many idiots/viewers was Lost losing another 260 thousand viewers to set a new low of 8.82 million. I realize that this hasn’t been the show’s best season and it’s been a little erratic, but Lost should not be bringing in one-third of the viewers that the biggest joke of a reality show/blight on the must world brings in, ever………
- While most of the United States couldn’t be more indifferent to hockey, one man in Columbus, Ohio clearly is trying to overcompensate for that lack of interest all by himself. Peter Stenzel not only buys the merchandise for, watches the games of and avidly follows his favorite team, the Calgary Flames, but he also makes threatening phone calls to opposing teams during games aginst Calgary. When his beloved Flames rolled into his hometown for an important game that could turn out to be a preview of a first-round playoff series come May, my main man Pete saw a chance to show his passion for his team. While the game was going on, he made physical threats against the Columbus Blue Jackets in a series of phone calls to the team's arena. Maybe it was the way the game went that inspired Stenzel’s meltdown, as the Blue Jackets defeated the Flames 5-0. Unfortunately for Stenzel, he’s not only a tad too enthusiastic about hockey, he’s also a moron and he failed to realize that it would take the police all of two minutes to trace the threatening calls. They did so, with the trail leading right to Stenzel’s door. Officers showed up to Stenzel's Columbus home, where they found him wearing a Flames T-shirt. He was arrested and charged with inducing panic for threatening physical harm against the Blue Jackets, then spent the night at the Franklin County Jail pending a Saturday court hearing. Police would not say if specific players were targeted or what the threats entailed, so we don’t know exactly what sort of brilliant rhetoric Stenzel was spilling, but maybe the true fun here lies in trying to imagine….your call. What I’m definitely rooting for now is that first-round matchup in the NHL playoffs between Calgary and Columbus, because you know there’s no way Stenzel stays in his shoes and doesn’t go full-out moron by Game 3 of that series. Good times…….
“ the new owner will continue to run it in the same manner" as it has been for the past 200 years. To that end, provisions have been made by the trust to ensure the houses are not sold off in the near future, with only the manor house to be vacant for the new owner. Some villagers have definite opinions on who their new landlord should be. Village thatcher Paul Raynsford declared, "I'd sooner not see a banker or someone who's going to asset strip it. I'd like to see a film star, pop star, footballer, someone who just wants to buy it so they can say 'I'm the lord of the manor.'" Interesting…..you want a vapid, rich, famous person who has no interest in actually having anything to do with your village be the one to buy it. I’d consider making the purchase myself, but I have my eye on a slightly larger village, say 100-200 people at least. Best of success to you, though, people of Linkenholt, in finding someone to buy your town. Let me know how it turns out for you…..
- I have a new hero and his name is Mike Lynch, a Bellevue, Wash. resident who tried to pay a traffic ticket from Portland, Ore. by sending a plastic bag filled with $206 worth of urine-soaked coins to a county billing office. After being stopped and cited for speeding in a construction zone, Lynch clearly wasn’t happy with the elevated fine due to the infraction occurring in a construction zone. Thus, he decided on a two-pronged rebuttal for the offense; first, collecting enough coins to use for the fine and second, giving those coins a nice golden shower. He wrapped the package nice and tight and sent the money to Portland, but because he did such a good job wrapping it no one knew what was inside until it was opened. The package didn’t smell and until county employees opened it, they had no idea what was coming. Unfortunately, there is a county policy of only accepting up to $20 in change, so court workers returned the money to Lynch. What’s great about this, in spite of the return-to-sender ending, is that Lynch is in no trouble for mailing urine-soaked coins to pay his ticket. Postal officials said it is legal to mail urine or other bodily fluids as long as they are packaged properly in a way that doesn't leak or smell. Honestly….the one thing that pisses me off is that I didn’t come up with this idea first. Well done, Mike Lynch. Thankfully, not everyone is as clueless as Sgt. Phil Anderchuk of the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office, who just can't figure out why anyone would commit such an awesome act. “That's something I can't wrap my mind around," said. "The thought process of acting consciously -- consummating the act of urinating in a box full of coins that someone is going to receive.” Allow me to help you out, sergeant. Cops are smug, condescending a-holes with unjustified superiority complexes who ruin people’s days and lives by handing out traffic citations. When people get these citations, they’re pissed and while most of us wouldn’t do something like what Mike Lynch did, most of us have thought about it. It doesn’t even matter if I agree with Lynch’s contention that “doubling a fine because the infraction occurred in a 'work zone' where no one was working is unfair, at best.” All that matters is that I LOVE his idea of sending his payment in urine-soaked coins as a political statement "to the unfairness of the situation." Even if his payment wasn’t accepted because of a technicality, the spirit of what he did is everything that makes America great and I salute him for it……
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Are those the sounds of an open challenge I hear emanating from the London police? As the po-po’s in London prepare for their city’s hosting of G-20 summit next week, they claim to be planning one of the largest and most complex operations in their history. London's three police forces are being brought under a single umbrella for the G-20 security plan, dubbed Operation Glencoe, said Cmdr. Simon O'Brien of London's Metropolitan Police. The LMP will be assisted by police forces from surrounding counties like Essex and Sussex in protecting the summit venue, delegates, their hotels, their official engagements, as well as monitoring protests around the capital. With some 10,500 police shifts being scheduled between March 24 and April 2, O’Brien feels pretty confident that all protests and would-be riots will be kept in check. We will not tolerate any people breaking the law, attacking buildings, people, or our officers," he said. Riiight. Like I said at the start, that’s an open freaking challenge to rioters and social dissidents everywhere, because I think we all know how much sheer joy and exuberance comes from the very activities you’re looking to shut down. You may be spending $10.4 million on security, but don’t think for one second you can break the spirit of protest the courses so strongly through the veins of riot lovers ‘round the world. When you bring together heads of state and financial leaders from the top 20 industrialized and emerging economies and leaders from non-G-20 nations as well, you can bet that there will be no shortage of groups looking to make their voice heard. Tomorrow, the first big protest of the weekend is scheduled. Police expect some 20,000 people to turn out for the "Put People First" march, which will start at Victoria Station, wind through Trafalgar Square, and end in a demonstration at Hyde Park. Approximately 120 groups will be represented in this particular march, which is expected to take place even if the heavy rain that is predicted for Saturday comes through town. I have to say, I like the dubbing of the summit "Financial Fools Day," what with the event taking place on April 2, one day after April Fool’s Day. On April 1, there are multiple smaller demonstrations scheduled in central London. I know this goes without saying, but I am rooting for each and every protestor who takes to the streets during these next few days. All of you are a part of something amazing, no matter how big or small your protest is. Whether the rumors about plans to storm important buildings like the Bank of England are true or not, I know you all will come up with something truly memorable. And if at any point you feel your energy and enthusiasm for your protest waning, remember the arrogant, defiant words of Cmdr. Simon O'Brien of London's Metropolitan Police and use them as motivation to kick it up a notch and get violent and confrontational……
- America, I am once again incredibly, incredibly ashamed of you. Looking at the television ratings from Wednesday night, I’m equally saddened, horrified and angered. To understand why, look no further than the 8 p.m. time slot, where American Karaoke averaged 25.6 million total viewers over its two-hour run, up 19 percent from last week's (Tuesday) sing-off and a 3 percent increase from the comparable night a year ago. Yes, 25.6 million of you turned into an overrated, musically poisonous karaoke show featuring a tip-frosting, man-blouse-wearing host and a dozen wannabe karaoke stars singing horribly butchered versions of songs that weren’t that good to begin with. The closest competition for AK was a Survivor clip show that placed a distant second with 8.15 million. I did get a slight confidence boost from the ratings for ABC’s new, terrible and destined-to-be-canceled-soon comedy Better Off Ted, which garnered a mere 4.7 million viewers, down 16 percent from the previous week. It shows that you all are capable of learning and recognizing a terrible, lame-ass comedy when you see one. Another show having a bad night was America’s Next Top Runway Bimbo, er, Top Model which saw its ratings plunge 21 percent and landed just 2.85 million viewers. Oh, and possibly even more horrifying and maddening than AK drawing in so many idiots/viewers was Lost losing another 260 thousand viewers to set a new low of 8.82 million. I realize that this hasn’t been the show’s best season and it’s been a little erratic, but Lost should not be bringing in one-third of the viewers that the biggest joke of a reality show/blight on the must world brings in, ever………
- While most of the United States couldn’t be more indifferent to hockey, one man in Columbus, Ohio clearly is trying to overcompensate for that lack of interest all by himself. Peter Stenzel not only buys the merchandise for, watches the games of and avidly follows his favorite team, the Calgary Flames, but he also makes threatening phone calls to opposing teams during games aginst Calgary. When his beloved Flames rolled into his hometown for an important game that could turn out to be a preview of a first-round playoff series come May, my main man Pete saw a chance to show his passion for his team. While the game was going on, he made physical threats against the Columbus Blue Jackets in a series of phone calls to the team's arena. Maybe it was the way the game went that inspired Stenzel’s meltdown, as the Blue Jackets defeated the Flames 5-0. Unfortunately for Stenzel, he’s not only a tad too enthusiastic about hockey, he’s also a moron and he failed to realize that it would take the police all of two minutes to trace the threatening calls. They did so, with the trail leading right to Stenzel’s door. Officers showed up to Stenzel's Columbus home, where they found him wearing a Flames T-shirt. He was arrested and charged with inducing panic for threatening physical harm against the Blue Jackets, then spent the night at the Franklin County Jail pending a Saturday court hearing. Police would not say if specific players were targeted or what the threats entailed, so we don’t know exactly what sort of brilliant rhetoric Stenzel was spilling, but maybe the true fun here lies in trying to imagine….your call. What I’m definitely rooting for now is that first-round matchup in the NHL playoffs between Calgary and Columbus, because you know there’s no way Stenzel stays in his shoes and doesn’t go full-out moron by Game 3 of that series. Good times…….
Thursday, March 26, 2009
A review of Smallville, an imbecilic new law in Hartford and Riot Watch! in Bangkok
- Which has a bigger gravitational pull on the University of Connecticut men’s basketball program: a Sweet 16 victory over Purdue or a potentially nasty recruiting scandal that could result in severe NCAA sanctions for them? On the one hand, there’s the hard-fought 72-60 win in a West Regional semifinal game, propelling the Huskies into the Elite 8. On the other hand, there are allegations that the UConn men’s basketball staff committed numerous violations in the recruiting of Nate Miles, a high school star from Toledo, Ohio who was kicked out of school before playing a single game in Storrs. The allegations against UConn are: former UConn student manager Josh Nochimson, who later became an agent, provided Miles with lodging, transportation, restaurant meals and representation between 2006 and 2008, that one of UConn's assistants knew about the relationship between Miles and Nochimson and that phone records show UConn coaches may have exceeded limits on phone calls and text messages to Miles and others close to him during the recruiting process. Teams are allowed one phone call per month to a recruit during his or her junior season, a limit UConn is alleged to have severely exceeded. The benefits provided to Miles by Nochimson would obviously be against NCAA rules, as Nochimson’s connection to UConn makes the program complicit in his rule-breaking. The NCAA is now investigating all of these allegations and UConn head coach Jim Calhoun isn’t exactly denying the allegations. He keeps referring all inquiries in the direction of the university’s administration and hasn’t refuted any of the claims. Fact is, if there are indeed a string of violations stretching between 2006 and 2008, there’s no way to hide that and UConn is screwed. The phone records showing thousands of calls and text messages between the school's coaches and Nochimson are pretty damning, but the real irony here is that UConn will have reaped zero benefits from Miles in the end and may end up paying a steep price for even recruiting him in the first place. He’s now a student at the College of Southern Idaho, a bastion of college basketball excellence to be sure. The Huskies are still contending for an NCAA championship without him, but the possible sanctions on the program once all is said and done could hurt the prospects for any subsequent title pushes in the next few years……
- Magic was in the air on tonight’s Smallville - literally. As Chloe celebrated her birthday at the Ace of Clubs in Metropolis, the mysterious Zatanna showed up at the club. Zatanna, a magician with a mission, was at the club looking for Oliver because she felt he could help her with her mission but when he had to leave in a hurry (not good because Lois had to do the same and Clark couldn’t make it to the party, leaving Chloe to celebrate alone), Zatanna offered Chloe one wish come true. Looking across the room, Chloe spotted the departing Lois and wistfully wished for her old life back, working at the Daily Planet and being Clark’s ever-present sidekick. Under the conditions of Zatanna’s spell, a person gets the one thing they want most, so the next morning Chloe wakes up in Lois’ body. The real Lois is off in Mexico, reporting on a story for the Planet, but Chloe is running around as a dead ringer for her cousin back home. No one notices and everyone at the Planet treats her as if she is Lois, even Clark. When they go out to cover a story together, Clark begins to notice something is different about Lois but can’t put his finger on it. Chloe is hesitant to reveal her actual identity, partly because she’s enjoying living the journalistic life once again and partly because she’s interested to see how Clark really sees Lois, which she determines to be with a pretty serious crush. It isn’t until the two arrive at the scene of the police standoff they are to cover and find an antique store owner ranting in Latin from a third-floor balcony that the truth about Chloe/Lois’ condition surfaces. After a police officer sees them, approaches and chats up Chloe because he thinks she’s Lois, Chloe is able to understand some of the Latin that the crazed store owner is yelling and makes out exclamations of a book that brings death and also the name Zatanna, which immediately strikes a chord with her for obvious reasons. It’s then she reveals to Clark that she’s really Chloe, a fact Clark has a hard time believing until Chloe rattles of a string of facts only she would know from their past, including about Clark’s true identity. Their next move is going to the downtown theater where Zatanna is performing and talking to her, but the magician refuses to lift the spell from Chloe and tells her that it will lift on its own when the things she wished for - Lois’ life in this case - is no longer what she wants the most. Zatanna then turns her attention on Clark and offers him the same wish-granting spell she offered Chloe. Her eyes sparkle the same way they always do when she casts a spell, but nothing appears to change - until Clark and Chloe step outside the theater. Nearby, a woman is attacked by a mugger and rather than use his superpowers to help, Clark instead dials 911. It seems his wish, as stated to Chloe prior to meeting Zatanna, was to be a normal guy who lived a normal life and didn’t try to save the world. Chloe is in disbelief that Clark has completely forgotten his super-powered half, but he seems perfectly content with it. Zatanna isn’t as content and she follows up on her encounter with Oliver the previous night by dropping by his top-floor office in the LuthorCorp building. She strides right in, tells Oliver she needs his help and in so doing, admits she doesn’t need his money or affluence because she’s wealthy on her own thanks to the estate of her late father, John Zatara. Oliver recognizes the name immediately, as John Zatara was a world-famous magician. Zatanna reveals that in spite of all her father left her, she’s missing one key item that is very important to her. That item is a book, containing spells and other family history, and Zatanna claims that Lex Luthor bought the book at auction after her father died. She wants it back and tells Oliver that if he retrieves it for her from the LuthorCorp storage warehouse, she’ll grant him one wish. Zatanna isn’t totallt truthful about why she wants the book, but nonetheless Oliver dons his Green Arrow gear, breaks into the warehouse and gets the book. He barely makes it out the back door when Zatanna greets him and asks for the book. Oliver, having taken a peak at what’s inside and seeing how dark and dangerous some of it is, is hesitant to hand it over. When he tries to throw the book into a fire burning in an empty barrel in the alley, it flies right to Zatanna instead and she uses a spell from the book to bind Oliver to some scaffolding in the alley, using heavy metal chains. She leaves him there, unmasked, and goes on her way. Around the same time, Clark and Chloe/Lois are visiting the antique store owner in the hospital and finding out exactly what he told Zatanna about the book. He explains that she offered to grant his wish - a deeper knowledge of “dead” languages - in exchange for information about the book’s location. The exchange was made, he got his wish but he also realized that Zatanna wanted to use the book to bring her father back from the dead. To do so, she would need a soul and body to exchange for his, “a body for a body, a soul for a soul,” is how it was worded. Clark and Chloe/Lois realize that something very bad is probably about to happen and their fears are confirmed when they see a glowing light and bizarre clouds gathering on the roof of the Daily Planet. It’s the same spot, ironically, where Chloe/Lois had taken Clark hours earlier and attempted to convince him that he did indeed have superpowers in order to snap him out of his Zatanna-applied trance. Those attempts failed, but this time Chloe prevails on Clark that he is indeed a superhero and needs to use his powers immediately. In so doing, she manages to snap herself out of her own trance and return to her own body. Seeing her change back causes something to click inside Clark and he reaches deep inside, finds his inner superhero and super-leaps up to the roof. He gets there in time to stop Zatanna from completing the spell and tries to win her over with arguments about whether her father would really want her sacrificing her own life to bring him back after he died to keep her alive. Just as it appears Clark is about to win her over, Chloe arrives on the roof the conventional way (the stairs) and is zapped inside the weird warp-like door Zatanna has opened with her spell. At Clark’s urging, Zatanna ends the spell and releases Chloe. She reluctantly agrees that she won't bring back her dad and the next day she tells Oliver the same thing when she visits his office again. She also warns him that there are others in the world with a firm grasp on much darker, more dangerous magic than her and if he runs into trouble with them, he can call her and she’ll be on his side. As for Clark, he’s forced to deal with a returning Lois, who has gotten some of the details of the past day from Chloe. She has fun needling Clark and demands to see the “List of Reporting Rules” she gave him on his first day at the Planet that he framed and put inside his desk, something Chloe spilled the beans about. At the end of the conversation, Lois reveals she’s off on a date with a guy she met on her flight and tells Clark that after he stood her up last week on their coffee date to discuss what is going on between them, maybe it’s best if they leave the personal side of their relationship alone. No Doomsday this week, no Tess Mercer and no Jimmy Olsen, although when Clark thought Chloe was actually Lois, he did talk about how he believed that both Chloe and Jimmy shared the blame for the problems with their marriage. But there will be plenty of Doomsday next week, so be sure to tune in for that one……
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! This is a big one too, so I’m understandably pumped. In Bangkok, Thailand, some 20,000 angry anti-government demonstrators surrounded the Thai government headquarters today and set up camp in a bid to oust the prime minister. Yes, twenty freaking thousand! All afternoon long, protestors streamed into the area, setting up camp outside Government House. Already, they’ve erected a stage and tents in front of the building. This is a well-organized, well-run act of social dissidence and you have to credit the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD), which is responsible for the thousands of red-shirted protesters gathering to make their voice heard. This isn’t anything new for the group; they’ve been protesting since December to oust Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and his government. And according to UDD core leader Jatuporn Prompan, also a member of parliament from the Opposition Puea Thai Party, the group's anti-government efforts will go on for at least a month and the protest could last for up to a year if they wish. A freaking yearlong protest? Sounds like the world’s best and longest party to me! The action kicked off last night, when the demonstrators gathered at Bangkok's Sanam Luang plaza before marching to Government House on Thursday afternoon. In one of the more awesome protest tactics I’ve ever seen, they then broke out a freaking crane to take apart police barriers so they could gain access and surround Government House. I’m not kidding, they brought their own heavy equipment and removed police barriers. Freaking awesome. Now, protestors are blocking several roads and have set up a stage so they can get their message out. In response to the invasion of dissidents, civil servants working at Government House were asked to leave in the early afternoon. You might be asking yourself whether I’m down with the quest of the dissidents to return former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to power and the answer is…..I have no answer. I don’t give a rat’s ass who is in charge in Thailand, I just wants me some riot and protest action. I loved the sit-ins by opposition groups in Taiwan last year, just as I was down with the occupation of the headquarters of the government and the blockading of Bangkok's major international airport. That’s what’s great about being a riot lover; no matter who wins the dispute, you win because you get what you want most……..
- Lighten up, city of Hartford. Connecticut’s capital city has gone overboard in looking to stamp out noise, enacting a new law in the city that makes it illegal for anyone to make noise that can be heard more than 100 feet away, unless they have a permit. That’s a distance equivalent to the span between two city light poles. “We have heard loud and clear from community over the past few years about the importance of dealing with this issue,” said Jim Boucher, of the Hartford City Council. And just what could a citizen do that would violate the new ordinance? Actually, it could be as simple as a car muffler, loud motorcycle, or blaring music from a car or home. Yes, Big Brother is looking to govern every area of your life when it comes to noise. Heck, better not use an air horn in your own backyard, that might earn you a citation too. Personally, if I lived in Hartford I’d either be looking to move outside the city limits or at least heckle Mayor Eddie Perez and Police Chief Daryl Roberts in their campaign to educate the city about the new ordinance. I’m not buying the bulsh*t explanation of trying to improve the quality of life for residents; this sounds like a blatant cash grab to me. Heck, police officers who respond to noise complaints won't even carry noise meters like other cities have. Instead, the law will place far too much power in their hands by allowing them to simply issue a citation if they can hear the noise 100 feet from the source. So apparently they’re going to be walking around with tape measures? Residents of Hartford, I urge you to ignore this idiotic new law and if you are cited and hit with one of the three possible penalties - community service, a $90 fine or 25 days in jail - ignore that too…….
- Not sure what’s more disturbing: Robert O'Ryan’s psychopathic insistence that he was going to be with Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson "no matter what" and showing up at the Dancing with the (D-List) Stars studio with two loaded guns in his car or the fact that anyone is so interested in anyone who is appearing on Dancing with the (D-List) Stars in the first place. I’ve never once been inclined to watch that crap-fast featuring barely famous people doing one of the most boring activities in the world - ballroom dancing - while wearing ugly, fruity, bizarre-looking costumes, so it horrifies me that some people are so tuned in to the show and those appearing on it. These are people like Robert O’Ryan, who was arrested as he tried to enter the DWTDLS studio, according to a successful request for a restraining order filed by Johnson. She claims that she feared for her life after O’Ryan jumped the fence Monday afternoon and was detained by security at the CBS Studios lot where Dancing tapes. When police searched his car later on, they found "a loaded .45 handgun, a loaded shotgun, and materials classically used for kidnapping including duct tape, zip ties [and] a map.” Yeah, that is creepy, very creepy. Not only is this whack job looking to kidnap someone he doesn’t know because he believes they are destined to be together, the girl is underage. Dude, have kidnapping and romantic fantasies about chicks over the age of 18. Actually, Johnson’s family also sought protection for Johnson's Dancing partner, Mark Ballas, but it was not granted. As for O’Ryan….this lunatic is actually from Yullee, Fla., so he literally traveled across the country to hatch this plot. My man, crazy astro-nut Lisa Marie Nowak and her Houston-to-Orlando drive in adult diapers to kidnap and kill a romantic rival look sane by comparison. O’Ryan has been charged with one felony count of stalking and two misdemeanor counts of carrying a loaded firearm in a vehicle. If convicted, he would face up to four years in state prison. “He packed all his belongings, permanently left Florida to drive across the country because he believes the petitioner is speaking to him personally through the television and via ESP and that he will be with her no matter what,” Johnson's petition said. Yes, that is every bit as scary as it sounds, it’s not just you. This is one of those days when I’m glad not to be a famous person. Oh, and just as an advisory for all of you out there: no one on the television is speaking to you. They are a person on a small screen inside of a box, many miles away and often not even live. Do not act on their words and do not sell your belongings, travel across the country and attempt to kidnap anyone…..
- Magic was in the air on tonight’s Smallville - literally. As Chloe celebrated her birthday at the Ace of Clubs in Metropolis, the mysterious Zatanna showed up at the club. Zatanna, a magician with a mission, was at the club looking for Oliver because she felt he could help her with her mission but when he had to leave in a hurry (not good because Lois had to do the same and Clark couldn’t make it to the party, leaving Chloe to celebrate alone), Zatanna offered Chloe one wish come true. Looking across the room, Chloe spotted the departing Lois and wistfully wished for her old life back, working at the Daily Planet and being Clark’s ever-present sidekick. Under the conditions of Zatanna’s spell, a person gets the one thing they want most, so the next morning Chloe wakes up in Lois’ body. The real Lois is off in Mexico, reporting on a story for the Planet, but Chloe is running around as a dead ringer for her cousin back home. No one notices and everyone at the Planet treats her as if she is Lois, even Clark. When they go out to cover a story together, Clark begins to notice something is different about Lois but can’t put his finger on it. Chloe is hesitant to reveal her actual identity, partly because she’s enjoying living the journalistic life once again and partly because she’s interested to see how Clark really sees Lois, which she determines to be with a pretty serious crush. It isn’t until the two arrive at the scene of the police standoff they are to cover and find an antique store owner ranting in Latin from a third-floor balcony that the truth about Chloe/Lois’ condition surfaces. After a police officer sees them, approaches and chats up Chloe because he thinks she’s Lois, Chloe is able to understand some of the Latin that the crazed store owner is yelling and makes out exclamations of a book that brings death and also the name Zatanna, which immediately strikes a chord with her for obvious reasons. It’s then she reveals to Clark that she’s really Chloe, a fact Clark has a hard time believing until Chloe rattles of a string of facts only she would know from their past, including about Clark’s true identity. Their next move is going to the downtown theater where Zatanna is performing and talking to her, but the magician refuses to lift the spell from Chloe and tells her that it will lift on its own when the things she wished for - Lois’ life in this case - is no longer what she wants the most. Zatanna then turns her attention on Clark and offers him the same wish-granting spell she offered Chloe. Her eyes sparkle the same way they always do when she casts a spell, but nothing appears to change - until Clark and Chloe step outside the theater. Nearby, a woman is attacked by a mugger and rather than use his superpowers to help, Clark instead dials 911. It seems his wish, as stated to Chloe prior to meeting Zatanna, was to be a normal guy who lived a normal life and didn’t try to save the world. Chloe is in disbelief that Clark has completely forgotten his super-powered half, but he seems perfectly content with it. Zatanna isn’t as content and she follows up on her encounter with Oliver the previous night by dropping by his top-floor office in the LuthorCorp building. She strides right in, tells Oliver she needs his help and in so doing, admits she doesn’t need his money or affluence because she’s wealthy on her own thanks to the estate of her late father, John Zatara. Oliver recognizes the name immediately, as John Zatara was a world-famous magician. Zatanna reveals that in spite of all her father left her, she’s missing one key item that is very important to her. That item is a book, containing spells and other family history, and Zatanna claims that Lex Luthor bought the book at auction after her father died. She wants it back and tells Oliver that if he retrieves it for her from the LuthorCorp storage warehouse, she’ll grant him one wish. Zatanna isn’t totallt truthful about why she wants the book, but nonetheless Oliver dons his Green Arrow gear, breaks into the warehouse and gets the book. He barely makes it out the back door when Zatanna greets him and asks for the book. Oliver, having taken a peak at what’s inside and seeing how dark and dangerous some of it is, is hesitant to hand it over. When he tries to throw the book into a fire burning in an empty barrel in the alley, it flies right to Zatanna instead and she uses a spell from the book to bind Oliver to some scaffolding in the alley, using heavy metal chains. She leaves him there, unmasked, and goes on her way. Around the same time, Clark and Chloe/Lois are visiting the antique store owner in the hospital and finding out exactly what he told Zatanna about the book. He explains that she offered to grant his wish - a deeper knowledge of “dead” languages - in exchange for information about the book’s location. The exchange was made, he got his wish but he also realized that Zatanna wanted to use the book to bring her father back from the dead. To do so, she would need a soul and body to exchange for his, “a body for a body, a soul for a soul,” is how it was worded. Clark and Chloe/Lois realize that something very bad is probably about to happen and their fears are confirmed when they see a glowing light and bizarre clouds gathering on the roof of the Daily Planet. It’s the same spot, ironically, where Chloe/Lois had taken Clark hours earlier and attempted to convince him that he did indeed have superpowers in order to snap him out of his Zatanna-applied trance. Those attempts failed, but this time Chloe prevails on Clark that he is indeed a superhero and needs to use his powers immediately. In so doing, she manages to snap herself out of her own trance and return to her own body. Seeing her change back causes something to click inside Clark and he reaches deep inside, finds his inner superhero and super-leaps up to the roof. He gets there in time to stop Zatanna from completing the spell and tries to win her over with arguments about whether her father would really want her sacrificing her own life to bring him back after he died to keep her alive. Just as it appears Clark is about to win her over, Chloe arrives on the roof the conventional way (the stairs) and is zapped inside the weird warp-like door Zatanna has opened with her spell. At Clark’s urging, Zatanna ends the spell and releases Chloe. She reluctantly agrees that she won't bring back her dad and the next day she tells Oliver the same thing when she visits his office again. She also warns him that there are others in the world with a firm grasp on much darker, more dangerous magic than her and if he runs into trouble with them, he can call her and she’ll be on his side. As for Clark, he’s forced to deal with a returning Lois, who has gotten some of the details of the past day from Chloe. She has fun needling Clark and demands to see the “List of Reporting Rules” she gave him on his first day at the Planet that he framed and put inside his desk, something Chloe spilled the beans about. At the end of the conversation, Lois reveals she’s off on a date with a guy she met on her flight and tells Clark that after he stood her up last week on their coffee date to discuss what is going on between them, maybe it’s best if they leave the personal side of their relationship alone. No Doomsday this week, no Tess Mercer and no Jimmy Olsen, although when Clark thought Chloe was actually Lois, he did talk about how he believed that both Chloe and Jimmy shared the blame for the problems with their marriage. But there will be plenty of Doomsday next week, so be sure to tune in for that one……
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! This is a big one too, so I’m understandably pumped. In Bangkok, Thailand, some 20,000 angry anti-government demonstrators surrounded the Thai government headquarters today and set up camp in a bid to oust the prime minister. Yes, twenty freaking thousand! All afternoon long, protestors streamed into the area, setting up camp outside Government House. Already, they’ve erected a stage and tents in front of the building. This is a well-organized, well-run act of social dissidence and you have to credit the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD), which is responsible for the thousands of red-shirted protesters gathering to make their voice heard. This isn’t anything new for the group; they’ve been protesting since December to oust Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and his government. And according to UDD core leader Jatuporn Prompan, also a member of parliament from the Opposition Puea Thai Party, the group's anti-government efforts will go on for at least a month and the protest could last for up to a year if they wish. A freaking yearlong protest? Sounds like the world’s best and longest party to me! The action kicked off last night, when the demonstrators gathered at Bangkok's Sanam Luang plaza before marching to Government House on Thursday afternoon. In one of the more awesome protest tactics I’ve ever seen, they then broke out a freaking crane to take apart police barriers so they could gain access and surround Government House. I’m not kidding, they brought their own heavy equipment and removed police barriers. Freaking awesome. Now, protestors are blocking several roads and have set up a stage so they can get their message out. In response to the invasion of dissidents, civil servants working at Government House were asked to leave in the early afternoon. You might be asking yourself whether I’m down with the quest of the dissidents to return former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to power and the answer is…..I have no answer. I don’t give a rat’s ass who is in charge in Thailand, I just wants me some riot and protest action. I loved the sit-ins by opposition groups in Taiwan last year, just as I was down with the occupation of the headquarters of the government and the blockading of Bangkok's major international airport. That’s what’s great about being a riot lover; no matter who wins the dispute, you win because you get what you want most……..
- Lighten up, city of Hartford. Connecticut’s capital city has gone overboard in looking to stamp out noise, enacting a new law in the city that makes it illegal for anyone to make noise that can be heard more than 100 feet away, unless they have a permit. That’s a distance equivalent to the span between two city light poles. “We have heard loud and clear from community over the past few years about the importance of dealing with this issue,” said Jim Boucher, of the Hartford City Council. And just what could a citizen do that would violate the new ordinance? Actually, it could be as simple as a car muffler, loud motorcycle, or blaring music from a car or home. Yes, Big Brother is looking to govern every area of your life when it comes to noise. Heck, better not use an air horn in your own backyard, that might earn you a citation too. Personally, if I lived in Hartford I’d either be looking to move outside the city limits or at least heckle Mayor Eddie Perez and Police Chief Daryl Roberts in their campaign to educate the city about the new ordinance. I’m not buying the bulsh*t explanation of trying to improve the quality of life for residents; this sounds like a blatant cash grab to me. Heck, police officers who respond to noise complaints won't even carry noise meters like other cities have. Instead, the law will place far too much power in their hands by allowing them to simply issue a citation if they can hear the noise 100 feet from the source. So apparently they’re going to be walking around with tape measures? Residents of Hartford, I urge you to ignore this idiotic new law and if you are cited and hit with one of the three possible penalties - community service, a $90 fine or 25 days in jail - ignore that too…….
- Not sure what’s more disturbing: Robert O'Ryan’s psychopathic insistence that he was going to be with Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson "no matter what" and showing up at the Dancing with the (D-List) Stars studio with two loaded guns in his car or the fact that anyone is so interested in anyone who is appearing on Dancing with the (D-List) Stars in the first place. I’ve never once been inclined to watch that crap-fast featuring barely famous people doing one of the most boring activities in the world - ballroom dancing - while wearing ugly, fruity, bizarre-looking costumes, so it horrifies me that some people are so tuned in to the show and those appearing on it. These are people like Robert O’Ryan, who was arrested as he tried to enter the DWTDLS studio, according to a successful request for a restraining order filed by Johnson. She claims that she feared for her life after O’Ryan jumped the fence Monday afternoon and was detained by security at the CBS Studios lot where Dancing tapes. When police searched his car later on, they found "a loaded .45 handgun, a loaded shotgun, and materials classically used for kidnapping including duct tape, zip ties [and] a map.” Yeah, that is creepy, very creepy. Not only is this whack job looking to kidnap someone he doesn’t know because he believes they are destined to be together, the girl is underage. Dude, have kidnapping and romantic fantasies about chicks over the age of 18. Actually, Johnson’s family also sought protection for Johnson's Dancing partner, Mark Ballas, but it was not granted. As for O’Ryan….this lunatic is actually from Yullee, Fla., so he literally traveled across the country to hatch this plot. My man, crazy astro-nut Lisa Marie Nowak and her Houston-to-Orlando drive in adult diapers to kidnap and kill a romantic rival look sane by comparison. O’Ryan has been charged with one felony count of stalking and two misdemeanor counts of carrying a loaded firearm in a vehicle. If convicted, he would face up to four years in state prison. “He packed all his belongings, permanently left Florida to drive across the country because he believes the petitioner is speaking to him personally through the television and via ESP and that he will be with her no matter what,” Johnson's petition said. Yes, that is every bit as scary as it sounds, it’s not just you. This is one of those days when I’m glad not to be a famous person. Oh, and just as an advisory for all of you out there: no one on the television is speaking to you. They are a person on a small screen inside of a box, many miles away and often not even live. Do not act on their words and do not sell your belongings, travel across the country and attempt to kidnap anyone…..
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Lost rocked tonight, the government looking to persecute more illegal immigrants and South Africa inviting some really bad karma
- Pretty freaking cool, that’s how I’d describe last night’s Lost. I may not have felt that way throughout the entire episode, but as it ended that was my prevailing thought. My early negative feelings were because the episode was a flashback/this is your life, Sayid episode and we’ve had plenty of those episodes in previous seasons, both for Sayid and other characters. This week’s flashback took us back to a) Sayid’s childhood in Iraq, where his domineering father wouldn’t allow his older brother back into the house until he killed a chicken from the family’s coop, b) an apartment near the Kremlin in Moscow where Sayid, during his time working as an assassin at the beck and call of Ben Linus, killed the man Ben claimed was the final person from Charles Widmore’s organization that needed killing in order to protect the Oceanic 6, c) Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, where Sayid was located when working for an international humanitarian organization building houses and where Ben tracked him down to ask him to kill the mysterious man who was lurking outside Hurley’s home at the Santa Rosa mental hospital, and d) the meeting on the pier from earlier this season in which Ben, Sun, Jack, Kate and Sayid all took place and which Sayid left after threatening Ben that, “If we ever meet again, it will be very unpleasant for both of us.” After the meeting on the pier, the same woman, Ilana, who we saw lead Sayid onto Ajira Flight 316 in handcuffs, approached him at a bar near the pier as he sat drinking expensive Scotch. After talking for a while, the two of them ended up in a hotel room and appear to be about to sleep together when the woman attacked Sayid, told him she had been hired by the family of the man he killed on the golf course on the island of Seychelles (last season) to bring Sayid back to Guam to be held accountable for his actions. That’s how Sayid ended up on Ajira 316 with the rest of the Oceanic 6, although he did plead with Ilana to wait for the next plane when he saw Hurley, Jack and Kate at the gate. Of course, once the time travel flash hit the plane, Sayid went back to the island circa 1977 with Jack, Kate and Hurley, while Ilana stayed in 2007. In 1977, things aren’t looking so good for Sayid. The Dharma Initiative people are growing impatient with him, wanting to know who he is. Horace questions Sayid and offers him a chance to explain himself, but Sayid declines. Sawyer, a.k.a. LeFleur, asks for a chance of his own to talk with Sayid and tries to talk him into saying he’s a defector who wants to leave the Others for “Dharma-ville,” as Sawyer calls it. Sayid declines that offer and asks Sawyer to let him escape, which Sawyer declines. The next move for the Dharma crew is to take Sayid to a man named Oldham, whom Sawyer describes to Sayid as “our you.” Oldham is a torture specialist, but his treatment of Sayid involves only forcing some kind of drug in cube form down Sayid’s throat. The drug is apparently a truth serum, but when Sayid comes to and actually tells the truth - that he’s from the future, has been to the island before and that the Dharma Initiative will soon be massacred by the Others - they don’t believe him even though he is telling the truth. Frustrated, Horace and Co. take Sayid back to the barracks, throw him in his cell and hold an emergency meeting at Horace’s house. There, Rudzinski and Horace’s wife Amy both argue that the only sensible solution to maintain their safety is to kill Sayid immediately. When everyone votes in the affirmative, Horace asks Sawyer to make it unanimous even though he clearly doesn’t agree with the decision and Sawyer reluctantly raises his hand too. He then goes to visit Sayid and decides that the earlier plea for an escape is a good idea, except that now Sayid wants no part of it. He says he knows what his purpose in being brought back to the island is. That purpose has been made clear to him by his interactions with a 12-year-old Ben, who has brought him food and books while he’s captive. Ben even suffered a beating at the hands of his abusive father (who we know he later killed, as we saw in an episode two seasons ago) for being kind to Sayid. After Sawyer leaves his final chat with Sayid, who seems ready to face his impending execution, something odd happens: a flaming Dharma VW minibus rolls through the barracks, setting a house on fire after crashing. While everyone rushes to put the fire out and save the people in the house, young Ben sneaks into the holding cell and offers to let Sayid out if he promises to take Ben with him. Sayid agrees and off they go, only to be spotted by Jin, who is on a security patrol. Sayid recognizes his old friend and convinces Jin to let him keep going, but when Jin gets on the radio to confirm with Sawyer that he did in fact let Sayid out (which Sayid claimed), Sayid knocks him out. An amazed Ben asks Sayid where he learned to do that, but Sayid is crouched over Jin’s unconscious body and appears extremely upset. He grabs Jin’s gun, then says in a barely audible voice, “You were right about me, I am a killer.” The comment refers back to what Ben said to Sayid in the Dominican, but Sayid is turning it back on Ben because……he’s about to shoot and kill him. That’s what Sayid meant when he said he knew his purpose in coming back to the island, he was to kill Ben. My guess is he believes that killing Ben at age 12 will prevent all the horrible things Ben did later in life, but is that going to create more problems that it solves? The shooting was the final scene of the episode, but there were a few other interesting scenes I still want to get to. One involved Kate and Juliet, with Kate beginning her work assignment in the Dharma garage, working on cars with Juliet and having a conversation about Juliet now being with Sawyer. Kate learned of the development from Hurley, who blurted it out in the Dharma dining hall where he’s now a cook, making tasty waffles with dipping sauces. “I didn’t know how to tell you without it sound like I was telling you to stay away,” Juliet admits to Kate. Of course, that doesn’t prevent a tense Sawyer-Kate moment right before the flaming bus hits the barracks. After talking to Sayid and hearing about his “purpose” in returning to the island, Sawyer marches over to Kate’s house and demands to know why the Oceanic 6 came back to the island. Kate admits she doesn’t know everyone else’s reasons but, “I know why I came back.” Before she can explain, the flaming bus comes onto the scene and that conversation will have to be had another time. That about sums up this week’s episode, a great ending, a decent middle and a very good hour of television overall, can’t wait for next week…………
- Isn't denying the Dalai Lama a visa to attend an international peace conference just about the most blatant invitation for bad karma you can extend? South Africa is about to find out, because the exiled Tibetan religious leader wanted to attend a peace conference in Johannesburg, but was refused a visa because it was not in South Africa's interest for him to attend, said presidential spokesman Thabo Masebe. The reasoning is every bit as bogus and convoluted as you’d expect; South Africa thinks that, if the Dalai Lama attended the conference, the focus would shift away from the 2010 World Cup, the major international soccer tournament the country will host next year. “We cannot allow focus to shift to China and Tibet," Masebe said. No, why would you want people to think about a major human rights crisis when they could be thinking about an irrelevant soccer tournament? Two of the Dalai Lama's fellow laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former president F.W. De Klerk, have stated that they not participate in the conference if the Dalai Lama remained excluded, which I give them props for. De Klerk went so far as to say that the decision to refuse the visa made a "mockery" of the peace conference. “The decision to exclude the Dalai Lama is irreconcilable with key principles on which our society is based including the principles of accountability, openness and responsiveness and the rights to freedom of expression and free political activity. South Africa is a sovereign constitutional democracy and should not allow other countries to dictate to it regarding who it should, and should not admit to its territory - regardless of the power and influence of the country,” he fumed. Zero props for you, South Africa, for caving in to pressure by the Chinese government to black ball the Dalai Lama, who has always been a force for good and peace. It’s been 50 freaking years since they guy fled China in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule, so get over it. Oh, and nice show of total hypocrisy by South Africa, billing this peace conference was billed as an opportunity to showcase South Africa's role as a human-rights champion prior to hosting soccer's World Cup next year, then denying a visa to a man who is a human rights champion and noted peace advocate. But hey, I’m sure conference attendees Sepp Blatter, president of soccer's international governing body, and actress Charlize Theron will have enough great insights to make up for the absence of three laureates like the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Tutu and De Klerk……
- Spring training is a time for Major League Baseball players to shake off the rust, refine their skills and prepare for the upcoming season. And for the wife of one prominent Pittsburgh Pirates prospect, it’s a time to allegedly steal someone else’s 2-month-old baby. It’s an admittedly odd way to spend spring training, but you’ll have to take that up with Amalia Tabata Pereira, not me. She’s the wife of Jose Tabata, 20, an outfielder and one of the top three prospects for the Pirates who now has the extra burden of dealing with a wife who could be headed to prison. According to police, Amalia Tabata Pereira is suspected of taking the infant from a health clinic outside Tampa. She is being questioned by Florida detectives in Manatee County, where the girl was found unharmed Tuesday afternoon, a day after she was taken from the clinic. Sandra Cruz-Francisco was taken from her mother, Rosa Sirilo-Francisco, about 3 p.m. Monday by a woman her family only knew as 'Janet.' Janet/Amalia Pereira posed as an immigration official at the Plant City Health Department, where the baby’s mother had taken her child for a checkup. She met Janet, who told the mother that there were officers at her home waiting to deport her and the child's father to Mexico. She claimed that she could help the family out, but to do so she would need to take the baby. Incredibly, when the two women drove with the infant to a farm where the child's father works and Janet told him the same story, the mother actually handed the child over. No word as to why she’s looking to steal other people’s kids, but that should be an interesting explanation whenever it comes, as should her story about what she planned to do with the kid once she thieved it. In the end, Periera was done in by the ol’ anonymous tipster, who called police to report a woman on a street corner in downtown Bradenton had information about the missing baby. But is Pereira really the criminal type? Oh, you mean she has a criminal record that includes theft and fraud convictions? Never mind then. I do feel compelled to ask why a top prospect like Jose Tabata, a future star, is doing with a woman 23 years his senior who is an outright criminal. Step your game up, Jose………
- Arrogance is the downfall of many a criminal, mostly because the criminal ranks are full of morons who aren’t nearly smart or talented enough to be arrogant in the first place. Men like Joseph Wesley Torma of Largo, Fla. have enough trouble carrying out their harebrained schemes without calling the police to taunt them. I don’t know if Torma, or "Plasma Pat, the TV Discount Guy," as he dubbed himself, would have gotten away with his scheme if he’d simply laid low and kept his motuh shut. What I do know is that opening his yapper helped him get caught, period. After allegedly taking cash from Wal-Mart shoppers, promising to use his employee discount to get them a good deal on a TV set and then ripping them off, Torma decided that he had gotten over and decided to call the police to taunt them. Rather than get hooked by this idiot, the cops simply circulated security pictures of "Plasma Pat" and were able to find people to identify him and point them in his direction. He was arrested in Polk County over the weekend, charged with conning victims from as many as a dozen towns across the state of Florida. He allegedly befriended people outside Wal-Mart stores, telling his victims that he worked at the store, and that he could use his employee discount to get them a good deal on a major purchase. These people, like Torma clearly of subpar intelligence, handed him their money to go inside and make the purchase. Instead, Torma took the cash in one door, walked out another and left his clueless victims standing in the parking lot. One victim found himself out $300 while waiting outside for a television. According to Lt. Michael Loux of the Largo Police department, Torma made at least three phone calls to the police, talking of surrendering while bragging that he had cheated about 30,000 people who will never file a police report because they are too embarrassed. This is a situation where there are no winners, only losers. Torma loses because he’s an idiot who will now be heading off to jail, while his victims lose because a) they too are morons, as evidence by the fact that they handed some complete stranger hundreds of dollars in a Wal-Mart parking lot because he claimed to be a store employee who could score them a sweet deal, and b) because they’re not getting their money back. Then again, the money they lost should serve as a nice little lesson for these people and maybe they’ll use their remaining cash to go out and buy a brain transplant, or at least a freaking clue……
- To poison a mile-long stretch of the Rio Grande's banks or not to poison? The federal government is now smack dab in the middle of a bitter debate on the subject after planning to eradicate the invasive Carrizo cane infesting many portions of the Rio Grande's banks between Texas and Mexico because they claim the lanky cane provides cover for immigrants crossing the border illegally and poses a danger to Border Patrol agents trying to stop them. However, environmental groups and local residents complained that doing so posed health and environmental risks on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, so the poisoning has been postponed. Residents of two Hispanic communities near Laredo, Texas -- Barrio de Colores and Barrio El Cuatro -- filed a lawsuit late Tuesday asking a federal court to intervene and the court agreed. Among the complaints lodged by the plaintiffs in the suit are allegations that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection failed to assess the environmental impact adequately, failed to consider reasonable alternatives and failed to notify the public adequately. Jay Johnson-Castro Sr., executive director of the Rio Grande International Study Center and a leading opponent of the plan, doesn’t believe that sufficient studies have been done on the effects of the herbicides the government plans to use. "I've lived long enough to know what the government says is safe isn't always safe," he said. He does have a point there; the government lies, it lies often and it lies to benefit its own case in situations like this. Arguing for the government, Chuck Prichard, spokesman for CBP's Laredo sector, claims that the plan is safe and extremely necessary. “Someone can be in the cane and be 3 feet away from them, and you cannot see them,” Prichard said “A Border Patrol agent] could literally be surrounded and have no idea.” That may well be, but you can’t go slamming down any herbicide or pesticide you want to clear the area. Applying herbicides on a 1.1-mile test stretch of the Rio Grande may work and it may solve your problem, but at what expense? The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers may have settled on imazapyr for the test project and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency may claim that there is "reasonable certainty of no harm from aggregate exposure to imazapyr residues," but I’m not sold. Maybe that’s because maintaining a hearty distrust of the government is a staple of my life plan, but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong. So before you spend $2.1 million on this project, do your homework. You’ll have ample opportunity to eradicate vegitation along the stretch of river that forms a sharp bend between Laredo and Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, no worries. Persecuting illegal immigrants can wait for a day or two……
- Isn't denying the Dalai Lama a visa to attend an international peace conference just about the most blatant invitation for bad karma you can extend? South Africa is about to find out, because the exiled Tibetan religious leader wanted to attend a peace conference in Johannesburg, but was refused a visa because it was not in South Africa's interest for him to attend, said presidential spokesman Thabo Masebe. The reasoning is every bit as bogus and convoluted as you’d expect; South Africa thinks that, if the Dalai Lama attended the conference, the focus would shift away from the 2010 World Cup, the major international soccer tournament the country will host next year. “We cannot allow focus to shift to China and Tibet," Masebe said. No, why would you want people to think about a major human rights crisis when they could be thinking about an irrelevant soccer tournament? Two of the Dalai Lama's fellow laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former president F.W. De Klerk, have stated that they not participate in the conference if the Dalai Lama remained excluded, which I give them props for. De Klerk went so far as to say that the decision to refuse the visa made a "mockery" of the peace conference. “The decision to exclude the Dalai Lama is irreconcilable with key principles on which our society is based including the principles of accountability, openness and responsiveness and the rights to freedom of expression and free political activity. South Africa is a sovereign constitutional democracy and should not allow other countries to dictate to it regarding who it should, and should not admit to its territory - regardless of the power and influence of the country,” he fumed. Zero props for you, South Africa, for caving in to pressure by the Chinese government to black ball the Dalai Lama, who has always been a force for good and peace. It’s been 50 freaking years since they guy fled China in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule, so get over it. Oh, and nice show of total hypocrisy by South Africa, billing this peace conference was billed as an opportunity to showcase South Africa's role as a human-rights champion prior to hosting soccer's World Cup next year, then denying a visa to a man who is a human rights champion and noted peace advocate. But hey, I’m sure conference attendees Sepp Blatter, president of soccer's international governing body, and actress Charlize Theron will have enough great insights to make up for the absence of three laureates like the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Tutu and De Klerk……
- Spring training is a time for Major League Baseball players to shake off the rust, refine their skills and prepare for the upcoming season. And for the wife of one prominent Pittsburgh Pirates prospect, it’s a time to allegedly steal someone else’s 2-month-old baby. It’s an admittedly odd way to spend spring training, but you’ll have to take that up with Amalia Tabata Pereira, not me. She’s the wife of Jose Tabata, 20, an outfielder and one of the top three prospects for the Pirates who now has the extra burden of dealing with a wife who could be headed to prison. According to police, Amalia Tabata Pereira is suspected of taking the infant from a health clinic outside Tampa. She is being questioned by Florida detectives in Manatee County, where the girl was found unharmed Tuesday afternoon, a day after she was taken from the clinic. Sandra Cruz-Francisco was taken from her mother, Rosa Sirilo-Francisco, about 3 p.m. Monday by a woman her family only knew as 'Janet.' Janet/Amalia Pereira posed as an immigration official at the Plant City Health Department, where the baby’s mother had taken her child for a checkup. She met Janet, who told the mother that there were officers at her home waiting to deport her and the child's father to Mexico. She claimed that she could help the family out, but to do so she would need to take the baby. Incredibly, when the two women drove with the infant to a farm where the child's father works and Janet told him the same story, the mother actually handed the child over. No word as to why she’s looking to steal other people’s kids, but that should be an interesting explanation whenever it comes, as should her story about what she planned to do with the kid once she thieved it. In the end, Periera was done in by the ol’ anonymous tipster, who called police to report a woman on a street corner in downtown Bradenton had information about the missing baby. But is Pereira really the criminal type? Oh, you mean she has a criminal record that includes theft and fraud convictions? Never mind then. I do feel compelled to ask why a top prospect like Jose Tabata, a future star, is doing with a woman 23 years his senior who is an outright criminal. Step your game up, Jose………
- Arrogance is the downfall of many a criminal, mostly because the criminal ranks are full of morons who aren’t nearly smart or talented enough to be arrogant in the first place. Men like Joseph Wesley Torma of Largo, Fla. have enough trouble carrying out their harebrained schemes without calling the police to taunt them. I don’t know if Torma, or "Plasma Pat, the TV Discount Guy," as he dubbed himself, would have gotten away with his scheme if he’d simply laid low and kept his motuh shut. What I do know is that opening his yapper helped him get caught, period. After allegedly taking cash from Wal-Mart shoppers, promising to use his employee discount to get them a good deal on a TV set and then ripping them off, Torma decided that he had gotten over and decided to call the police to taunt them. Rather than get hooked by this idiot, the cops simply circulated security pictures of "Plasma Pat" and were able to find people to identify him and point them in his direction. He was arrested in Polk County over the weekend, charged with conning victims from as many as a dozen towns across the state of Florida. He allegedly befriended people outside Wal-Mart stores, telling his victims that he worked at the store, and that he could use his employee discount to get them a good deal on a major purchase. These people, like Torma clearly of subpar intelligence, handed him their money to go inside and make the purchase. Instead, Torma took the cash in one door, walked out another and left his clueless victims standing in the parking lot. One victim found himself out $300 while waiting outside for a television. According to Lt. Michael Loux of the Largo Police department, Torma made at least three phone calls to the police, talking of surrendering while bragging that he had cheated about 30,000 people who will never file a police report because they are too embarrassed. This is a situation where there are no winners, only losers. Torma loses because he’s an idiot who will now be heading off to jail, while his victims lose because a) they too are morons, as evidence by the fact that they handed some complete stranger hundreds of dollars in a Wal-Mart parking lot because he claimed to be a store employee who could score them a sweet deal, and b) because they’re not getting their money back. Then again, the money they lost should serve as a nice little lesson for these people and maybe they’ll use their remaining cash to go out and buy a brain transplant, or at least a freaking clue……
- To poison a mile-long stretch of the Rio Grande's banks or not to poison? The federal government is now smack dab in the middle of a bitter debate on the subject after planning to eradicate the invasive Carrizo cane infesting many portions of the Rio Grande's banks between Texas and Mexico because they claim the lanky cane provides cover for immigrants crossing the border illegally and poses a danger to Border Patrol agents trying to stop them. However, environmental groups and local residents complained that doing so posed health and environmental risks on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, so the poisoning has been postponed. Residents of two Hispanic communities near Laredo, Texas -- Barrio de Colores and Barrio El Cuatro -- filed a lawsuit late Tuesday asking a federal court to intervene and the court agreed. Among the complaints lodged by the plaintiffs in the suit are allegations that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection failed to assess the environmental impact adequately, failed to consider reasonable alternatives and failed to notify the public adequately. Jay Johnson-Castro Sr., executive director of the Rio Grande International Study Center and a leading opponent of the plan, doesn’t believe that sufficient studies have been done on the effects of the herbicides the government plans to use. "I've lived long enough to know what the government says is safe isn't always safe," he said. He does have a point there; the government lies, it lies often and it lies to benefit its own case in situations like this. Arguing for the government, Chuck Prichard, spokesman for CBP's Laredo sector, claims that the plan is safe and extremely necessary. “Someone can be in the cane and be 3 feet away from them, and you cannot see them,” Prichard said “A Border Patrol agent] could literally be surrounded and have no idea.” That may well be, but you can’t go slamming down any herbicide or pesticide you want to clear the area. Applying herbicides on a 1.1-mile test stretch of the Rio Grande may work and it may solve your problem, but at what expense? The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers may have settled on imazapyr for the test project and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency may claim that there is "reasonable certainty of no harm from aggregate exposure to imazapyr residues," but I’m not sold. Maybe that’s because maintaining a hearty distrust of the government is a staple of my life plan, but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong. So before you spend $2.1 million on this project, do your homework. You’ll have ample opportunity to eradicate vegitation along the stretch of river that forms a sharp bend between Laredo and Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, no worries. Persecuting illegal immigrants can wait for a day or two……
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