- Not sure what’s funnier; the fact that the 8GB model of Apple’s vastly overrated iPhone is now free in Japan or the fact that if I were a Japanese citizen, I still wouldn’t be getting one. As of Friday, Softbank Mobile, the exclusive carrier of Apple’s (AAPL) smartphone in Japan, is giving anyone who signs a two-year contract a free 8GB iPhone 3G. Of course, if you want the 16GB model, you’ll still have to pay $118 (reduced from $350). Not only are the phones cheaper, but SoftBank Mobile’s data plan is also being discounted from $62 to $45.60 per month for both new and existing subscribers. None of this is surpsing, not given the sagging sales numbers for the iPhone that have been reported in Japan thus far in 2009. Oh, and if those new prices seem like a bargain, just know that on average, Japanese customers still pay nearly $150 a month for iPhone service than, roughly double what their American counterparts pay for the same services. Bearing all of this in mind, if you live in Japan and still want to seize upon this opportunity, you have until the end of May to do so. Then again, you could always wait for the next rate cut for iPhone data plans, which seems possible given the fact that this marks the second time prices have been reduced since the iPhone debuted in Japan in July. I’d tell Apple that anyone who wants one of their overrated, underperforming phones would have one by now and that a price cut isn’t going to do much for their sales, but let’s face it: Apple just isn’t smart enough to listen to me, as past evidence would indicate……
- Heroes was bi-coastal tonight, flipping back and forth between Costa Verde, Calif., New York and Washington, D.C. - with a couple of stops in middle America mixed in. Out on the left coast, Claire Bennet was forced to come clean with mom Sandra about hiding fellow PWP (people with powers) Alex Woolsey in her closet to keep him from being captured. Once Sandra knows the situation, she’s willing to help Claire and Alex out. Clair has a plan to get Alex on a train that night to Albuquerque, but getting him out of the house safely becomes tougher when two agents from Nathan Petrelli’s secret organization sitting in a van out on the street, watching the house. At one point, the agents in the van force their way into the house and search for Alex, but Claire and Sandra hide him in the pantry behind a false wall panel just in time. Once night falls, Sandra provides a diversion for Claire and Alex to escape by pulling out of the driveway with son Lyle in the front seat of the SUV, which causes the agents to stop them because they think it’s Alex in the car. Meanwhile, Claire and Alex bolt out the back door, over a few fences and away from the pursuing agents. They have a close call a few hundreds yards into their flight, but use Alex’s ability to breathe underwater to hide in a pool. There, they also share their first kiss, although it starts with Alex helping Claire to breathe underwater because she doesn’t share his power to do so on her own. Also, earlier in the episode, the two had an interesting talk in her bedroom about whether marriages can really last and if that sort of commitment is worth it, with Alex arguing that it is while Claire has doubts. In the end, Alex escapes on the train out of town and Claire returns home. Returning home isn’t what Matt Parkman and Peter Petrelli have in mind. They’re in New York at Isaac Mendez’s old loft, where Matt has spent the night painting the same image over and over - of him in the future, with a bomb strapped to his chest and in the heart of Washington. Peter snaps him from his trance and the two are arguing when a message pops up on a computer screen in the loft, containing a message from the mysterious Rebel, who has been warning PWP of danger all season long. Rebel tells them where Matt’s girl Daphne is so they can rescue her, then warns them to flee because agents are coming for them. Matt and Peter escape and head right for Building 26, the home base for Nathan’s organization and the place where Rebel says Daphne was taken. Before going in, Peter elects to take on Matt’s power to control minds and because he can only possess one power at a time now, he has to give up his power to fly. “Two people directing thoughts is good,” he reasons. Those words prove true inside the building, where he and Matt mind-trick their way to the 11th floor and the operations center for the facility. Peter sorts through the computer system and finds out that Daphne is no longer in the building, having been transferred to a medical facility. While hacking into the system, he receives another message from rebel, who directs him to files in the system showing the scene from the airport hangar earlier this season when the PWP were shackled, had hoods on their heads and were herded onto the transport plane. Peter copies the files onto a flash drive and takes them with him once Rebel offers another warning that he and Matt need to leave immediately. Unfortunately, H.R.G. and the Hunter (whose name is Danko, it turns out) know Matt and Peter are in the building and H.R.G. knows that when Matt is using his powers, his other senses become very susceptible to other stimuli, things like loud noises. Sounding the fire alarm is enough to disrupt Matt’s powers, breaking his control over the minds of two security guards he’s been using to fend off the Hunter from attacking he and Peter. With that link severed, Matt and Peter are cornered as they try to escape and even though the alarm stops, it’s too late for them both to get out. Matt offers to stay behind and fight so Peter can get away, which is just what happens. Matt is captured and Peter gets out, but Matt’s nightmare is only beginning. Later on, the Hunter kidnaps him and takes him into Washington with a bomb strapped to his chest and tosses him out of a van right in the spot where Matt painted himself with the bomb. The Hunter also saw the painting from the agents who raided Mendez’s loft’s cell phones, so he’s setting Matt up to create fear in the hearts of Americans about how dangerous PWP are. This setup isn’t what Peter or even Nathan wanted for Matt. Peter called Nathan after escaping, right as Nathan was meeting in the back of a limo with their mom Angela. The deal Peter offered as the files he’d stolen for Matt and Daphne, a trade Nathan agreed to. However, the Hunter had other plans: setting Peter up. The Hunter and H.R.G. went to the parking garage where Peter asked to meet and the Hunter waited on a nearby roof with a rifle to take Peter out while H.R.G. tried to set him up for the shot. However, H.R.G. also tried to warn Peter using his thoughts, which he knew Peter could read. The warnings didn’t work and the Hunter shot Peter, who fell over the edge of the garage and apparently to his death until a blur came flying upward, caught him and took off into the night. It was Nathan, who whisked his brother away to another rooftop where he and Angela tried to talk to Peter. Nathan admitted that his plan had gotten way out of hand and said that only he could fix it, but Peter and Angela disagreed. Nathan tried to talk Peter into turning himself in, but Peter only pretended to agree so he could absorb his brother’s power again and fly away. In so doing, he made good on his threat to distribute all of the files he’d stolen to the national news broadcasts, which aired the footage and exposed the organization Nathan and the Hunter have been running, although we don’t know if their links to it have also been exposed. Oh, and as for those stops in middle America, I’m of course referring to everyone’s favorite conflicted mass murderer, Sylar. He and traveling buddy Luke, the teen with the power to microwave people from the inside out, are still in the car and on their way to find Sylar’s dad. Sylar makes a sudden swerve off the road and into the parking lot of Big Jim’s, an abandoned diner. He removes the boards from the doors and windows using his telekinetic powers and he and Luke venture inside. There, Sylar begins recalling that he has been to the diner before, with his dad. Little by little, the memories of htat day come flooding back. He remembers playing with a toy car while his father talked to a man and woman. The couple gave him a big wad of cash and Sylar’s dad left - without him. This verifies the story Luke told Sylar previously, that his dad sold him when he was a kid. After taking the cash and walking out, Sylar’s dad walked to his car with his distraught son running after him. It was then we saw where Sylar gets his propensity for slicing people’s heads open: from dear old dad. Papa Sylar argued with his wife, who obviously didn’t want to sell her son the way he’d just been sold and got her head sliced open because of it. She fell out the passenger door onto the ground as Sylar’s dad drove off. Remembering now what a monster his dad was Sylar snaps out of his trance and takes his aggression out on Luke. However, he stops short of killing the boy, instead telling him to go home to his mother while Sylar continues on his pilgrimage to find his dad - and kill him, as it turns out. So there you go, a pretty interesting episode, although another week with no Ando, Hiro or Mohinder, which sucks. The show can never strike a good balance or rhythm when it comes to keeping regular characters on the screen week in, week out. But other than that, a good episode and it sets up a doozy next week, when Matt standing in the middle of the National Mall with the bomb strapped to him as Nathan tries to help him diffuse it before the Hunter detonates it. So until then…….
- U.S.A.! U.S.A.! Chant it with me, everyone, because we’ve set a new record and there’s nothing more patriotic than uniting as a nation to recognize a monumental achievement that we’ve banded together to attain. What’s the record? Well, according to a report released Monday by the Pew Center on the States, a record number of Americans served time in corrections systems across the country in 2007. That’s right, we’ve reached a new high for felons in this country and I, for one, could not be prouder. In 2007, the U.S. correctional population -- those in jail, prison, on probation or on parole -- totaled 7.3 million, or 1 in every 31 adults. Think about that one for a minute. No matter how small your neighborhood is, you probably have 100 people living in your general vicinity. According to these stats, 3.2265 of those people spent some time in jail or out on probation or parole in 2007, on average. These facts appear legit, as the Pew Center on the States compiled the information from Justice Department and Census Bureau statistics. All the numbers point to one trend: our nation’s prison population skyrocketing over the past 25 years. Back in 1982, a paltry 1 in 77 adults were in the correctional system in one form or another, totaling a measly 2.2 million people. According to the results of the study, there are also some definite racial and cultural components when it comes to who is in the correctional system. “Black adults are four times as likely as whites and nearly 2.5 times as likely as Hispanics to be under correctional control. One in 11 black adults -- 9.2 percent -- was under correctional supervision at year-end 2007," the report said. "And although the number of female offenders continues to grow, men of all races are under correctional control at a rate five times that of women.” I’m not here to argue whether these figures are fair or right or if any one race or ethnic group is being treated fairly or unfairly by the system, but I do have to say, props to the men out there for continuing to kick women’s asses (which ironically landed many of those incarcerated men behind bars) when it comes to getting ourselves thrown into jail. A 5-to-1 ration in men to women behind bars? Can you say gender superiority? As far as the standout states in incarceration, Georgia is leading the way with 1 in 13 adults in the state's corrections system. Lagging behind at the bottom of the list is New Hampshire, where the figure is 1 in 88. Southern states tend to have higher rates, with Plans and rural Northeastern states coming in lower. Sure, these high numbers have led to a huge budgetary effect, but let’s not sweat the small stuff. Of course, if the California Supreme Court has its way, some 58,000 prisoners would be released because of overcrowding issues, administering a harsh hit to our record growth of people in prison. That being said, we need to find a place to hold this party, America, because we’ve clearly got something to celebrate…..
- Few things in life give me greater joy than bad things happening to smokers. Smokers foist so much harm on the rest of us by choking down their cancer sticks, forcing us to breathe the toxic secondhand smoke, subjecting us to the leathery green skin that results from smoking and driving up health car costs with their nasty habit that anything bad coming their way is just beautiful karma. So it’s with great delight that I salute the state of Arkansas, which put a brand new 56 cent statewide cigarette tax into effect Sunday. Better yet, the revenue from the increased tax on idiots, er, smokers will be used to counterbalance some of their ill effects on society, funding a statewide trauma center and other health projects. I do have to burst the bubble of some supporters of the tax who also believe it could drive down smoking rates. As much as I would love for that to happen, fact remains that smokers are a stupid, stubborn and hearty group that clings to their addiction with a Vulcan death grip even though smoking is sending an inordinate number of them to an early grave. These losers are people like Mark Morris, a smoker and Arkansas resident who clearly has a) no grasp on the principles of the English language and b) a relatively low IQ. “I think it's crazy. They don't make no sense," said Morris of the new tax. He believes that the new state tobacco tax is unfair because at 56 cents a pack, it will raise the price of a carton by $5.60. “Taxing the daylights out of cigarettes, chewing tobacco, groceries. I mean, it's really getting outrageous,” Morris added. Whoa there, Mark. Don’t go lumping in groceries with your filthy tobacco products. Groceries are food and toiletries, items all of us actually need. Cigarettes and chewing tobacco are vile, unhealthy products that serve no real purpose other than making money for tobacco companies. What you need to do, Mark, is form some sort of car pool or cooperative with your fellow Arkansas smokers who are crossing state lines and going north to Missouri to purchase their packs in the state with the second lowest tax in the country -- only 17 cents per pack. Of course, no matter what state you buy your cancer sticks in, you won't be able to dodge the new federal tax increase on tobacco, set to go into effect in April and raise the price of cigarettes an additional 62 cents a pack. Hopefully that money will also be used to fund much-needed projects like the Arkansas trauma center that hopes to receive $87 million in funding from the cancer stick tax hike. But before we finish, how about one final, uneducated and imbecilic word from my new main man, Mark Morris? “I think it's discrimination. It's only after the smokers. You know, people are going to do what they want to do regardless of how high it goes," said Morris. Mark, just like the lottery, this too may be a tax on the stupid, but I’m willing to live with it and so are most of your fellow Americans, I’m guessing. Just give up smoking and the tax doesn’t effect you, plus you’ll probably live longer, be healthier, look better and stop smelling so bad all of the time……
- Who among us hasn’t had a naked man staging a seven-hour protest atop our place of worship and threatening to jump off the cross affixed to the roof of said place of worship? Granted, it’s much more likely to happen in Los Angeles, given the whack job quotient in the City of Angels, so I can’t be too surprised that a naked man climbed up on the roof of a two-story church in Mid-City and lingered there for seven hours while threatening to jump off. The man is now facing vandalism charges, plus his theatrics forced the West Central Presbyterian Church at 5284 W. Ninth Street to cancel its Sunday services. Why, I don’t know. What, your parishioners can't be subjected to some naked dude on the roof of the church, screaming at them as they enter? Suck it up. Regardless, police and firefighters were called to the scene around 8:00 a.m. Sunday and when they arrived, they found the unidentified man threatening to jump from on top of a cross about 10 feet above the roof of the two-story building. Rescue teams then spent the next several hours trying to talk the man down off the roof, but he was having none of it. Instead, he went on a rant at one point and in one of the more disgusting protest tactics I’ve ever heard of, actually spread his feces on the cross. Later on the saga, an air cushion was set up and ladders extended to the top of the roof. These measures weren’t enough to bring things to a conclusion because firefighters judged the cross to be too rusty and unstable to lean any equipment against it. Finally, around 3 p.m., fire paramedics and police were able to talk the man into coming down. This loon was then placed under a 72-hour psychiatric hold and La Brea Avenue between Wilshire and Olympic boulevards was reopened after being shut down during the incident. Some mighty fine citizens you have, Los Angeles, no doubt about that………
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