- Personally, I thought that Live Nation charged more than enough for its concerts to keep the company profitable and swimming in cash. Clearly, Live Nation does not agree. On Tuesday, the concert promoter announced a deal with Apple Inc's iTunes to feature downloads of some of the live concerts it promotes. The iTunes store will soon have a section featuring the concerts of about 20 artists. It’s not a great slection, to be honest, especially not when two of the artists to be included are Jesse McCartney and Ziggy Marley. But fear not, as Apple and Live Nation plan to add hundreds of more shows in the coming months. So perhaps you’re asking yourself, “Just how much do these two corporate giants plan to rip me off for?” I’m glad you asked. The answer is that prices will start at about $7.99, which I’m guessing will buy you the first half of your average Jesse McCartney concert. The concerts will mostly come from the more than 20,000 concerts Live Nation promotes each year. The Los Angeles-based company has inked licensing rights deals for live performances with major label owners and artists to enable a smooth launch of the service. Improved digital technology has made producing and distributing concert recordings online much easier and much cheaper. Financial terms of the new deal were not disclosed, but just assume that both Apple and Live Nation will be getting much, much richer by ripping you off at bloated prices and you won't be far off. Live Nation isn't exactly taking a huge risk with the endeavor as it is. The company already records most of the shows it produces, so they are merely making use of recordings that already exist and looking to turn an additional profit from concerts with ticket prices that are far too high to begin with. Ah, how I love the music business………
- The way the Notre Dame football team has been playing this season, someone clearly deserved to be punched in the face – just not quarterback Jimmy Clausen. Head coach Charlie Weis has surely deserved several well-placed jabs to the nose over the course of the year, but instead it was Clausen who was sporting a black eye after getting cold-cocked by a fan as he left C.J.'s Pub in South Bend at about 2 a.m. local time with his family and girlfriend after Notre Dame's 33-30 loss to UConn. Clausen’s group allegedly decided to leave the restaurant after words were exchanged with another party at the bar. Clausen's girlfriend realized she left her purse behind and behind the good boyfriend, he went back to retrieve it. That’s when the fan allegedly followed him back outside and sucker-punched him. Notre Dame officials have been adamant that Clausen did nothing wrong and as athletic director Jack Swarbrick insisted, Clausen was the "victim of a sucker punch. He was not engaged in a fight. He didn't throw any punches. He didn't directly engage the individual. He just got cold-cocked by somebody, and we're very disturbed by that." The police report backs up Swarbrick’s explanation that Clausen did not fight back and left. South Bend Police Capt. Phil Trent said police were called to the scene after receiving a report of a fight. By the time they arrived, everyone involved in the incident was gone. An employee at the bar confirmed that several Notre Dame upperclassmen were with Clausen at the bar Saturday and that off-duty South Bend police officers were working at the bar providing security, which is fairly common there. One thing Notre Dame fans might want to keep in mind is that punching guys in the face for no reason is not a good way to convince them to come back for their senior year when they are likely to be a top 10 pick in the NFL draft. Clausen is just that and I have to imagine that when it comes time to make his decision, he isn't going to think, “Man, I was undecided about what to do, but if random idiots are going to punch me in the face for no reason, I’m definitely coming back for my senior season!” I can’t say for sure what precipitated the punch, but reports that Clausen's family had sold its South Bend home certainly won't make angry fans less likely to bruise his face with their fists. Because of the black eye, Clausen has been sporting a black visor in the front of his helmet this week in practice, a wardrobe choice that Weis has previously not allowed his players to make. Just to be clear from here on out, Notre Dame fans, if you are going to unjustifiably punch someone in the face because of your team’s poor performance, make it Charlie Weis and leave Jimmy Clausen alone………..
- Who else is already tired of hearing about Michaele and Tareq Salahi? If the names are unfamiliar to you, the story is not. They are the two aspiring reality TV losers who crashed a White House this week. There is outrage at the Secret Service allowing two yahoos who were actually invited to a state dinner to attend. It’s not even true that the Salahis weren’t any more of a threat to President Obama than any of the other guests because they had to go through security just like everyone else, because they still could have a) been carrying some sort of toxin or poison or b) been scoping out the building and passing the information on to people with more sinister intentions. The reality is that they were not on the guest list and somehow managed to Jedi mind-trick the Secret Service into letting them in. Edward Donovan, a Secret Service spokesman, acknowledged the officers at the checkpoint involved in clearance for the state dinner for visiting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh did not follow proper procedure when the Salahis arrived and it was determined they had not been invited. No one is saying why the White House social office, which has in-depth knowledge of all guests for such events, wasn’t called to the gate when it was determined that the Salahis weren’t on the guest list. As we’ve all become painfully aware, these ass hats actually met the president and got a little bit of face time with him. My true beef here is not with the lack of security at a major White House event; I’ve got issues with the role of reality TV in this debacle. Apparently the Bravo network is intent on dropping a show about past-their-prime, skanky cougars who drive expensive cars, live in lavish homes and have less class, dignity and self-respect than the buffet at a strip club into every city in the country. They’ve already touched up Los Angeles, Atlanta and New York. Now, they are bringing this train wreck to our nation’s capital and the Salahis are reportedly being considered for "Real Housewives of D.C.” These clowns even bragged about their success on their Facebook page. "Honored to be at the White House for the state dinner in honor of India with President Obama and our First Lady!" they wrote. See what reality TV does to our culture? It makes ass hats like the Salahis think that they are important, relevant and valued in our society. They get the mistaken impression that we give a rat’s ass about them and are fascinated by their ridiculous act. Bad news for you, Michaele and Tareq Salahi: You are not important, interesting or relevant. No one cares about you and our only interest in regards to your sorry asses is in mocking you incessantly………
- Here you go, space dorks. In what surely is a big development for you, scientists at NASA have discovered a nearly invisible ring around Saturn, large enough that it would take 1 billion Earths to fill it. Its orbit tilts tilted 27 degrees from the planet's main ring plane. The ring is extremely large, with its diameter is equivalent to 300 Saturns lined up side to side. Most of the ring starts about 3.7 million miles away from the planet and extends outward another 7.4 million miles. One of Saturn's moons, Phoebe, orbits within the ring. “This is one supersized ring," said Anne Verbiscer, an astronomer at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. The obvious question is why it took so long to discover something so large and oddly enough, there is actually a perfectly reasonable explanation for it. The ring is made up of ice and dust particles that are so far apart that "if you were to stand in the ring, you wouldn't even know it," Verbiscer said in a statement. Plus, very little sunlight makes it out to Saturn, so there isn't much for the ice and dust particles to reflect. However, the cool dust (minus 316 degrees Fahrenheit) -- glows with thermal radiation and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope picked up on the heat. The ring orbits in the opposite direction to Iapetus, another of Saturn's moons. I don’t expect this discovery to drum up as much interest and debate among space dorks as when it was decided that Pluto was no longer considered a planet, but I’m always happy to brighten the day of science and space dorks around the world any time a get a chance. So as I said previously, you’re welcome, space dorks………
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