- I’m going to shoot straight here: I’m not a huge fan of extortion schemes. My love for Ponzi schemes and pyramid schemes is well know, mostly because of how totally idiotic the people who get caught in them have to be. But extortion…..it doesn’t matter how smart you are or whether you’ve done anything horrifically wrong, you can find some despicable, sleazy a-hole who sees what you have and decides to extort you to get a piece of it. Thus, I’m not very amused by the revelation that the estranged wife of a longtime aide to University of Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino was indicted Tuesday on federal charges of trying to extort money from Pitino and lying to the FBI. Karen Cunagin Sypher, you are officially a piece of crap. I say that not only because you committed a thoroughly reprehensible crime that has you facing a combined maximum penalty of seven years in prison and a $500,000 fine if convicted, but mostly because of how morally bankrupt you need to be to engage in such activities. Although it’s not known exactly what Sypher was trying to hold over Pitino’s head in the scam, what is known is that Sypher sent a written list of demands to Pitino courtesy of her husband, Louisville equipment manager Tim Sypher. What I wouldn’t give to have been in the room when Tim Sypher walked into Pitino’s office to hand him that list of demands. “Coach, here’s what my estranged wife wants from you to keep (Personal Secret X) from going public. Oh wait, my bad, that’s actually our grocery list, pulled the wrong piece of paper from my pocket….). As a quick aside, I’m wondering how you put together a list of extortion demands. Do you type it up, write it out or maybe cut out pictures of things you want from magazines and paste them on a piece of plain white paper, a la the way serial killers often “write” their letters to the police chasing them? This is a question I need an answer to. But back to Karen Sypher…a) she pleaded not guilty during her arraignment Wednesday and b) her demands from Pitino included: college tuition for her children, two cars, her house paid off and $3,000 per month. At some point in the saga, those demands escalated to $10 million instead. For some odd reason, Pitino wasn’t willing to play ball with some crazed woman trying to extort him for $10 million and reported the matter to the FBI. Karen Sypher surrendered to authorities a few days later when she was named in a criminal complaint, but so far the details of what she was trying to use as her leverage remain a mystery. Authorities say the coach believed it was related to an unspecified 2003 encounter with her, but the nature and details of that encounter are likewise unknown. Regardless of what happened, I feel justified in saying that if you participate in any sort of extortion scheme, ever, then you are unquestionably a douche bag of the highest order……
- I am pumped. How can a guy be anything but thrilled about the news that a subpar software company is releasing the latest edition of its substandard operating system later this year? Yes everyone, Microsoft confirmed on Monday that it is planning to release Windows 7 this year, in time for the holiday shopping season. "We are tracking well to a Windows 7 holiday," Microsoft Senior Vice President Bill Veghte. Awesome news, Billy. But I do wonder why you would want to replace a real winner like Windows Vista so quickly. After all, Vista made you the talk of the tech world. Of course, that was because everyone was endlessly mocking you and your crap-tacular OS, but you can’t be picky. If there were any real, rabid Microsoft fans, I’m sure they would be excited about this announcement. It was only four months ago that Veghte was saying publicly that such a release was not a sure thing, so this is an abrupt reversal of course. For months now, Microsoft's official position has been that Windows 7 would ship by January 2010 -- the three-year anniversary of Windows Vista's mainstream launch - and who wouldn’t want to mark such a momentous occasion in style? Apparently the feedback on test versions of Windows 7 were positive enough to convince Microsoft it could commit to a 2009 launch. I wouldn’t be so quick to do so, because it’s entirely possible that people are judging the new OS on a sliding scale and next to Vista, the preset buttons on your car radio look advanced and brilliant by comparison. This time around, Microsoft is looking to address one of the major issue that early adopters to Vista struggled with: limited graphics support. To that end, Bill Gates’ boys have been working with graphics chip vendors extensively in preparing for this launch. Veghte explained that once the product is declared final, it could be anywhere from nine to 14 weeks to be ready for launch. Personally, I’m jazzed about this release, but not because I have any intention of ever using Windows 7. No, I’m just excited to see how many ways this system f**ks up and what sort of nightmares it presents for the sad saps who do have to use it. Don’t let me down, Microsoft. I’m counting on you and your new OS for some hearty laughs in the latter half of 2009……..
- Welcome to the party, former Mexican President Vicente Fox. Please, someone pass Mr. Fox a bong and let him take a good rip from it. After all, Fox has joined three other ex-leaders of Latin American nations calling for the decriminalization of marijuana. This isn’t some random stoner playing hackey sack in the quad at the local community college; this is a guy who was Mexico's president from 2000 to 2006. “I believe it's time to open the debate over legalizing drugs,” Fox said on Tuesday. "It must be done in conjunction with the United States, but it is time to open the debate.” So not only does he want to legalize the chronic, but he wants the U.S. to do it as well. Great thinking, Vicente, I like your style. Of course, I might not have made the link between pot and the end of Prohibition in the United States in 1933, but I’ll give you some room to make your point. See, Fox links the lessening of organized crime violence after Prohibition ended to what he believes would be a similar dip in that sort of crime if the hippie lettuce were legalized. “It can't be that the only way is for the state to use force,” he said. Joining Fox in his visionary approach to this issue are his predecessor as president of Mexico, Ernesto Zedillo, and the former heads of Colombia and Brazil. All three men are members of the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy. They’ve been touting this brilliant plan since the commission called for the decriminalization of marijuana for personal use at a February meeting in Brazil. “The problem is that current policies are based on prejudices and fears and not on results," former Colombian President Cesar Gaviria said at a news conference in which the commission's recommendations were presented. I’m going to go ahead and gloss over the fact that Fox said any change in drug laws must be accompanied by an education campaign in schools and homes and keep trumpeting his championing of the legalization of tree. These fellas on the LACDD also have some interesting thoughts on the state of legalizing weed in the U.S. “In many states in the United States, as is the case in California, they have begun to change federal policies with regard to tolerating marijuana for therapeutic purposes. And in Washington there's some consensus that the current policy is failing,” Gaviria said. Know what? That’s good enough for me. Former leaders of foreign countries think we should legalize pot? Go for it. It doesn’t matter that most of the drug violence spurring their advocacy is taking place outside the U.S.; just legalize the hippie lettuce and give the stoners what they want. If their factual backing for the plan comes from something Prohibition in the United States in the 1920s) that came eight decades ago, so be it. Heck, former
national security adviser Robert Pastor, who served under President Carter in the late 1970s, backs the comparison. “What worked in the U.S. was not Eliot Ness," he said, referring to the federal agent famous for fighting gangsters in the 1920s and 19'30s. "It was the repeal of Prohibition.” Sold. I’m on board with the quest to allow American stoners to get baked legally, so all about the Pineapple Express…….
- I’m trying to think of the best way to describe tonight’s Smallville season finale and the best I can do is…disjointed and not even close to being one of the best in the series’ seven-year history. There were no truly memorable moments and the conclusion was both ambiguous and pretty disappointing. However, let’s start at the beginning and hack our way through…..Clark gets a visit from Rokk, one of the members of the Legion of Justice, who comes from the future with a dire warning. He tells Clark that just as the Legion promised him on its last visit to the 21st century, by destroying BRAINIAC, CK was able to save the world as it exists in the future. However, his recent actions in regards to Doomsday have created other problems. Because he didn’t kill Doomsday when he had the chance and because Chloe tried to kill him by using Kryptonite but failed, Doomsday is now invincible and there is nothing to keep him from killing Clark. In fact, Rokk informs him that in the future, Clark is no longer around and that tomorrow is the day he is to die. That leaves Clark with precious little time to find Davis and Chloe and kill Doomsday/Davis. He has extra motivation from Lois, who is all over his case about not doing enough to find Chloe. Clark is instead taking a few minutes to write out a goodbye letter/quasi-suicide-ish note to the citizens of Metropolis in case he is in fact killed by Doomsday. He then zips out of the room, calls Lois as the red/blue blur and asks her to publish the letter in the Daily Planet if anything happens to him. Lois asks to meet the blur in person, but Clark says it’s not a good idea. After that, it’s back to the Kent Farm to consult with Bart (a.k.a. the Flash) and Black Canary about a plan to kill Doomsday. Clark is still set on using black Kryptonite to separate the Doomsday (Kryptonian) side of Davis from the human side. He suggests drawing Doomsday to the newly re-opened LuthorCorp thermonuclear power plant and trapping him in the miles of tunnel well underneath the plant, then trapping him there by detonating a massive explosion, along with using the black K to peel off the Doomsday side of Davis and send it into the future using the new Legion ring that Rokk gave him so that the Legion can take care of Doomsday, which they claim to be able to do. While the trio meets, Oliver Queen strides into the barn and once again berates Clark for trying to save Davis instead of killing him. Clark will have none of it and coldly informs Oliver that he’s no longer a member of the group of superheroes that he basically helped form. That’s because he crossed the line and killed Lex Luthor (allegedly, I still don’t think Lex is dead), a revelation that stuns Bart and Canary/Diana. While all of this is going on, Chloe and Davis are still on the run and currently on the outskirts of Edge City, staring at the stars on the hood of a junky old car. Davis tells Chloe a story of Persephone, an ancient mythological character who fell in love with a hideous, beast-like creature. Chloe says that they just have to find a way to keep on running and escaping, which becomes more difficult when Oliver Queen sends Jimmy Olsen to break into Tess Mercer’s computer and dig up information on Chloe and Davis’ whereabouts, as he rightly believes that Tess is tracking the two. Of course, Tess is having a really bad day all around, with someone having broken into her vault at the Luthor Mansion and stolen the Kryptonian orb she had been so fascinated with and which had called out to her and lit up magically last episode. Jimmy finds the files he’s looking for on Tess’ hard drive, but he also finds an unexpected surprise lurking under her desk: Lois. She’s there for the same reason Jimmy is, but once he finds out that Chloe and Davis are just outside of Edge City, he takes off. Lois remains behind and views more files on Tess’ computer, including a video of one of her employees at LuthorCorp being tortured and grilled about the orb, the Traveler and the Beast. When Lois finally leaves, she’s confronted by Tess, who accuses her of stealing the orb. Lois takes offense to the suggestion and a short-but-volatile chick fight breaks out at the Planet offices. The two women roll around on top of desks, on the floor and just about anywhere else you could brawl in an office. As both lie on the ground, each digging down deep for another burst of energy, Lois glances next to her and spots the Legion ring that Clark had been hiding in his desk drawer. She picks it up and next thing you know, she’s gone, transported somewhere else in time. As this happens, Jimmy has relayed the info about Chloe’s whereabouts to Oliver, Bart and Black Canary and they’ve shown up and managed to surprise Davis well enough to tranq him and capture him. Canary then sends an audio file to Clark telling him of the location, but it is actually a trap. When Clark shows up, Oliver shoots him in the back from behind with a Kryptonite arrow. It won't kill him, Oliver says, but will keep him out of the way so he and his cohorts can do what they need to do with Davis. That means taking both Davis and Chloe to the geothermal plant and killing Davis/Doomsday. But before that can happen, both Chloe and Davis regain consciousness. She argues against killing him - give it up already, Chloe - but finds a surprising opponent in the debate: Davis himself. He says that killing him is the only choice, that even her presence is no loner enough to calm the beast inside of him. Then, Davis begins to morph into Doomsday and Oliver, Bart and Canary can’t stop him or kill him in time. Chloe grabs the black Kryptonite from Bart and manages to split off Doomsday from Davis, leaving an unconscious Davis lying on the ground and the angry beast on a raging crusade of violence. Doomsday escapes and begins terrorizing Metropolis. Back in Edge City, Jimmy arrives at the scene of Davis’ capture and finds an incapacitated Clark. He pulls the green K dart from CK’s back and then watches in awe as a wound on Clark’s cheek magically heals. Clark is forced to admit to Jimmy his true identity and that Jimmy was right all along about who he and Davis really were. Clark then super speeds to the geothermal plant and gets the bad news about Doomsday’s escape. His uses his super hearing to determine where the beast is and arrives in the city to find total chaos - fires, destroyed cars and buildings and citizens in danger. When Clark confronts Doomsday, he is punched through a building and thrown around like a rag doll. Ultimately, Clark sees and opening just as Doomsday is about to land another colossal punch and surges forward, grabbing his adversary and super-leaping up into the night sky. The two crash land back at the plant, where Clark has directed Black Canary and Bart to be ready to detonate the explosives in the tunnels under the plant once he returns with Doomsday. This was actually a key scene and for that reason, it was very poorly done. Basically, we only saw Clark and Doomsday in a long shot, falling from the sky and crashing down into the plant before a massive explosion and fireball consume the facility. No close ups or views of what happened inside or how Clark got out, just a quick explosion and fade out. The next thing we see is a shot of Chloe and Jimmy inside an apartment in Metropolis that he tells her was to be her wedding present. She never got it because their wedding was ruined by Doomsday and he went to the hospital instead of his honeymoon, but now Clark has asked Jimmy to take Davis (sans Doomsday) there to recover. Jimmy obliges, but as Davis is still out cold on the floor, Jimmy shows her the apartment. It has a view of the entire city of Metropolis and although it needs a lot of work and renovation, Chloe loves it. She tells Jimmy that everything she’s done in running off with Davis was to protect Clark, whose secret Jimmy now knows too. The two kiss and vow to never be apart again, but tragedy is about to strike. An odd metallic sound causes both to look around in surprise and lo and behold, Davis is conscious again and has impaled Jimmy on a long metal pipe. He’s heard everything she just said about not really loving him and only going with him to save Clark and is enraged. He screams at her about why she didn’t love him, un-placated by her claims that she just wanted to save him and help him. Davis appears on the verge of killing Chloe too, but Jimmy summons one final burst of life and rushes up from behind to shove Davis into an expose metal rail, returning the impaling favor. Davis dies on the spot, but so does Jimmy. Chloe loses two of the three guys who mean the most to her all in one fatal moment. Next, we see Chloe, Bart and Diana at Jimmy’s funeral, where Chloe introduces herself to Jimmy’s little brother (don’t think you would have met your husband’s little brother before then? That didn’t work, storyline-wise.) and gives him one of Jimmy’s cameras while telling him that maybe one day he can follow in his big brother’s footsteps. Chloe leaves along with everyone else - except Oliver, who remains and exchanges a tense look with Clark, who has been watching from a distance across the cemetery. Clark goes back to the apartment Jimmy and Chloe had planned to share and sees the scene of the crime. Chloe doesn’t know he has survived his encounter with Doomsday or that he was at the funeral, so she greets him with a big hug before asking about Lois, who Clark assures her there is no sign of so far. Clark then stuns her by revealing that he now agrees with Oliver, that he put humanity up on a pedestal too much. It was the human side of Davis that killed Jimmy, CK explains, and he made a mistake by allowing his human emotions to cloud his judgment and keep Davis alive long enough to commit the murder. Chloe argues that his human emotions help make him the hero he is, but Clark counters that they are preventing him from being the hero he could be. He vows that Clark Kent is now dead and that everything from that life is over for him. He says goodbye to Chloe and walks out the door, off to God knows what. The final scenes of the season feature Tess at the mansion, awakened in the night by a mysterious light from outside the house. She runs through room after room and arrives at a window just in time to se the orb hovering above the ground at the base of an exterior wall. A burst of light comes from the orb and next thing you know, a dark figure is standing where the orb had been. It’s a man with his arms outstretched, standing in the midst of a symbol being burned into the ground: the symbol for Zod, the Kryptonian general who has been Clark’s arch nemesis for most of the series’ history. So is this Zod himself or just another season-ending “major” obstacle that Clark will take care of within the first half-hour of next season’s premiere? Tune in this fall and see for yourself……
- I don’t know for sure where I’ll be or what I’ll be doing on Sept. 24, but I can tell you one place I won't be and at least one thing I won't be doing then: I won't be in Asia and I won't be listening to those hacks, the Black Eyed Peas, perform as part of an international bill of artists set to honor the 250th anniversary of Guinness. Those musical jokes will perform in Asia on Sept. 24 as part of Guinness' global anniversary celebrations, which will simultaneously see 24-hours of live music and festivities take place in various cities around the world including New York, Lagos, Yaoundé, Kuala Lumpur and Dublin. Unfortunately, the country where Black Eyed Peas will be performing is yet to be confirmed. It’s unfortunate because you’d like to see the citizens in that area warned as soon as possible so they can a) being protesting, b) burn down all possible venues for the show, c) buy the world’s best ear plugs or d) flee the country. Of course, the rest of the lineup isn’t much better, with acts currently confirmed to play at the Dublin leg on Sept. 24 including Estelle, the Enemy, Soul II Soul, the Undertones, D'Banj, Reverend & the Makers, Mongrel, Mystery Jets, Johnny Flynn and DJ and producer David Holmes. The only decent acts set to take the stage are Kasabian, Noah & the Whale and the Wombats. I know, when you have a major event like this, you have to appeal to fans from a wide range of musical genres. That’s fine and I’ll go with that, except for the part where the Hack Eyed Peas become part of the equation. Those musical arsonists put douse everything that is good about music with gasoline and light the match to burn it down. Their style and songs are so off-kilter, contrived, over-produced and flat-out awful that you can’t even call them music. But hey, everything else about the event sounds cool. Transforming Dublin's St. James Gate Brewery, where Guinness has long been produced, into a live music studio for the event is a great concept. So is using the venue to host a series of performances for an audience of 2,000 guests. “2009 marks a very special milestone for the Guinness brand, from 1759 when Arthur [Guinness] signed the 9,000 year lease on the St. James's Gate brewery to today, where Guinness is a truly global brand, enjoyed in 150 countries around the world,” said spokesman Brian Duffy. To honor the brand’s year of founding, artists and consumers around the world are encouraged to raise a Guinness at 5:59 p.m. local time on Sept. 24 in a global toast to Arthur Guinness. Guinness has recruited some solid B, C and D-list celebrities to take part, including Bob Geldof, Guy Ritchie, Carson Daly, Jerry Hall and model Sophie Dahl. Now if they could only get rid of the Hack Eyed Peas……..
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