- One of the constant sources of humor in this world is the never-ending string of idiots who think they see Jesus or the Virgin Mary in completely bizarre objects like a pile of grass clippings, the bark of a tree or some mayo they spilled on the kitchen counter. I’m by no means mocking their faith or their religion, because I have no problem with either. What I have a problem with is these morons thinking that God is appearing to them courtesy of his image in the face of some dog droppings in their backyard. Not likely, you tools. For the latest illustration of just who these tools are, let’s turn to Bryan, Texas, where the Pachuca family says a pile of bird droppings on the driver’s side mirror of their pickup truck is actually an image of the Virgin Mary. Salvador Pachuca spotted the bird crap on the mirror on July 12 when he returned to the home for the home since having an accident there four months ago. "I told my brothers come over here and see what this is and they say this is the Virgin," he explained. Like the mindless sheep she seems to be, Cristal Pachuca proceeded to take pictures and began making calls to invite others to see. I feel strongly that anyone who heeded her call should be shipped off to Antarctica and forced to live the rest of their pathetic life eating snow and communing with the great white abyss at the South Pole, far away from civilization, but I digress…..the bottom line here is that God does not work through bird droppings on car mirrors. These idiots in the Pachuca family may consider this occurrence a “miracle,” but that merely underscores their own stupidity. "We just all feel protected. It's a blessing to our family and to everybody that comes to see it," Cristal Pachuca said. Mmmm hmm, sure it is. Sadly, there have actually been people showing up to pray to this pile of bird excrement on a truck mirror. Just because a truck that is rarely used was moved outside to be washed and some random bird flying by dropped a deuce on its driver’s side mirror doesn’t mean anything other than someone needs to get a hose out and wash off that freaking mirror……..
- In a year of great albums (just not the ones that have received the most attention), veteran rockers Pearl Jam will join the fray later this year with their ninth album, "Backspacer," due Sept. 20. I’m pretty pumped for this album, having long been an Eddie Vedder fan. If you watched Fox's broadcast of the Major League Baseball All-Star Game Tuesday night, you heard a small chunk of "The Fixer," the album’s second single. The track officially goes to U.S. radio and digital retailers on Monday, with Target being the exclusive big-box retailer in the United States for “Backspacer” once it’s released in September. Fox only used a few seconds of “Fixer,” but Vedder has one of the more recognizable voices in music and it was clear who was singing “something's gone, I want to fight to get it back again.” The band debuted the album’s first single, "Got Some," June 1 on "The Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien." Coincidentally enough, the All-Star Game plug timed up nicely with the start of the band’s official Web site taking pre-orders for CD and vinyl versions of "Backspacer" as well as a 7-inch single for "The Fixer,” something that began yesterday. Also, Pearl Jam has confirmed the 11-track contents of "Backspacer," which features three songs recently premiered during Vedder's U.S. solo tour: "Unthought Known," "Speed of Sound" and "The End." Pearl Jam will take to the road Aug. 8 in Calgary, Alberta, and has dates on tap through Oct. 30 in Philadelphia in support of the album. As for the track list for "Backspacer": "Gonna See My Friend,” “Got Some,” “The Fixer,” “Johnny Guitar," "Just Breathe, " "Amongst the Waves, " "Unthought Known," "Supersonic," "Speed of Sound," "Force of Nature," "The End.” I know that having not heard the overwhelming majority of those songs at all, the song list might not mean much, but hopefully it will be backed by a great album come Sept. 20………..
- That didn’t take long. Less than an hour after signing a contract with the Philadelphia Phillies to officially make his return to Major League Baseball, pitcher Pedro Martinez has landed in a very familiar place: the disabled list. After inking a one-year contract with the Phillies on Wednesday, Martinez was subsequently placed on the 15-day disabled list with a mild shoulder strain. At some point in the next couple of weeks, he’ll start a minor-league rehabilitation assignment, although the particulars haven’t been decided yet. Reports have the value of Martinez’s contract at $1 million, not a bad bargain if the three-time Cy Young Award winner has anything left in the tank. “They said he was throwing much better than he was last year and that he was in tremendous shape," Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said after managing the National League in Tuesday night’s All-Star Game. "Then I also hear today that he took a physical. That's about the extent of what I've heard.” Depending on how he performs, Martinez can earn up to $1.5 million in incentives. The question is whether he can bounce back from an extremely uncharacteristic 2008 season in which he went 5-6 with a 5.61 ERA for the New York Mets. He also pitched for the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic before this season. Now, he will need to make at least a few starts in the minors before he's ready to join Philadelphia's beleaguered rotation. No. 2 starter Brett Myers had hip surgery in June and is done for the year. His replacement, Antonio Bastardo, made all of five starts before joining Myers on the disabled list. A good measurement of the depth of the Phillies’ injury woes is that they have already have used nine starters through 86 games after using only seven starters all of last season. So which Pedro Martinez are they adding? Is he the guy who has gone 214-99 with a 2.91 ERA in 17 seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Montreal, Boston and the Mets, or merely the broken-down veteran who was battered for the Mets last year? For the sake of Philly’s hopes of repeating as World Series champions this year, they’d better hope it’s the former…….
- Where was Summer Nelson of Post Falls, Idaho when I was a little kid? That’s always the question to ask when news of a babysitter being arrested for sexing it up with a kid half her age comes out. There are actually a lot of bizarre angles to this story, not the least of which is that this boy’s mother felt the need to hire a babysitter for a child who was 14 years old at the time. Seriously, kids as young as 10 are often allowed to stay home by themselves if a parent can’t be there when they get home from school, yet this kid’s mother feels her teenage son needs a babysitter. In some sense, this woman was almost asking for trouble. You put any 14-year-old boy alone with a reasonably attractive older girl and you should count on something bad happening. That’s exactly what went down here, as Nelson and the boy allegedly had sex at least four times after she was hired to watch him in August 2007. She watched him, all right, just a little too well. It wasn’t until this past December that the abuse was reported. The boy's mother, a friend of Nelson’s, grew suspicious of Nelson's attention toward the boy. Once police investigated, they discovered that Nelson also told the boy's siblings that she was in love with their brother. That’s another disturbing aspect of the story, the always-creepy profession of love by an adult female towards a underage boy. Also, not a good sign that Nelson was dumb enough to confide in kids about her alleged love for their brother, knowing full well she was putting her criminal secret in the hands of the worst secret-keepers of all-time, kids. Now, she faces charges of four counts of lewd conduct with a child, one for each of the alleged encounters. Obviously the identity of the boy is being kept quiet because he’s a minor, but you can bet that at age 16, he’s still a freaking hero to his peers and quite the ladies man around school….
- Here’s the ultimate “so what” in international political news. The commander of Iran's nuclear program for more than a decade has resigned. Reza Aghazadeh said in an interview that he submitted his resignation 20 days ago and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has now accepted it. Great, like that’s going to do a damn thing to impact Iran’s nuclear policies. They’re going to develop nuclear capabilities and weapons and look for the first chance to use them no matter who the head of their nuclear program is. Besides, everyone knows that it’s Ahmadinejad who is calling the shots anyhow. Whichever rubber-stamp bureaucrat/sycophant he puts in this position, the dictator is the one in charge of it all. As for Aghazadeh, he was promoted to Iran's vice president of atomic energy in 1997 under reformist President Mohammad Khatami. As head of Iran's atomic program, Aghazadeh was practically handpicked by the senior figures in Iran's clerical establishment and fully trusted by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. He did a decent job of keeping out of the country’s party politics and the ongoing showdown because Ahmadinejad and the opposition groups from whom he stole the most recent presidential election. Aghazadeh gave no reason for his decision, but maybe he wanted to get out of government in a country that is slowly but surely imploding under the weight of its leader’s rampant corruption. Whoever takes his place will like keep up Iran’s policy of refusing international calls to suspend its production of enriched uranium, which it insists will be used to fuel civilian nuclear power plants. In other words, look for more of the same that you’ve come to expect from your pals in Iran over the years, good times……..
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