George Hill and Greg Oden, ending up with nude photos of him online and having to apologize for said photos. Bennett officially apologized Monday after the photos surfaced on the Internet at Mediatakeout.com, which reported that a former girlfriend of Bennett's submitted the photos Bennett, who was taking pictures of himself in a bathroom mirror. "These pictures were taken four years ago and placed on the Internet recently without my knowledge or consent," Bennett said in a statement. "I understand that they are totally inappropriate. And for that I am sorry. I regret the embarrassment that it has caused the organization." Look, I appreciate the effort to make a standard, boilerplate apology in a prepared statement that someone from the team released on your behalf, but if we’ve had this conversation once, we’ve had it a thousand times. If you don’t want nude photos of yourself online, then there is only one solution: don’t take them. If you take them, they are going to end up online somewhere, especially if you expedite the process by emailing them to a girl you are dating at the time but will almost assuredly break up with at some point. Then again, Bennett isn’t exactly angling for a Mensa membership here. He’s the same guy who once bragged about eating a dog at a restaurant in China, posted a YouTube video in which he and his brother talked about competing in the “Black Olympics” and then proceeded to see how much watermelon and fried chicken they could eat. The team was understandably perturbed with Bennett and team vice president of communications Rich Dalrymple spoke about the incident. “We discussed this matter today with Martellus and will address it further on an internal basis," Dalrymple said. Oh, and I should also mention that Bennett was fined last year by the Cowboys for making a racially insensitive remark and for using a slur offending gays on a rap video posted on YouTube video and made a Osama bin Laden video this summer. For a guy with immense talent on the field but a relative lack of production thus far in his career, Bennett might want to consider tightening up his act and focusing on his game from here on out, lest he stupid himself right out of the NFL………
- Bring it, b’otch. Those are my words to Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, who Sunday said his country will stop exporting oil to the United States if there is a military attack stemming from escalating tensions between Venezuela and Colombia. Why we’re getting dragged into this, I don’t know. Chavez has an insane preoccupation with the U.S. "The Yankee empire has no limit to its manipulation," Chavez said. Nice “Yankee empire” reference, H. Nothing makes you sound more imposing and informed than a blatant anachronism like that. Yankee empire? Dude, this isn’t 1776. No one calls us the Yanks anymore, at least no one other than the British. But perhaps my main man Hugo is just feeling the pressure from accusations that Colombian rebels have found refuge in Venezuela. When Colombia called an emergency meeting of the Organization of American States last week and showed off photos that it said were evidence of camps belonging to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia in Venezuela, the situation took a turn for the ugly. Venezuela continues to deny the allegations and the two nations have broken off diplomatic ties with one another. For all the rhetoric, there has been no physical evidence that a Colombian attack is forthcoming. Chavez, who has a problem with anyone who dares exercise free will and disagrees with him, seems resigned to the worst possible outcome. If an attack happens, Chavez said Sunday, Venezuela would stop supplying oil to the United States, "even if we have to eat rocks" because of the ramipercussions. "That would be a response of dignity and high caliber," Chavez said. So what sort of impact would that have on the U.S.? Well, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Venezuela is the fifth-largest supplier of crude oil to the United States, delivering an average of 894,000 barrels of oil per day. But those threats are just part of Chavez’s planned campaign of terror in the event of a Colombian attack, as he also hinted at "internal measures" in Venezuela against the opposition and media in case of a war. How this man can oppress the media and opposition groups any more than he already does, I don’t know. Also, the fact that he very well could be supporting guerrilla groups like FARC only adds to the absurdity of the situation. The group operates mostly in Colombia but have carried out extortion, kidnappings and other activities in Venezuela, Panama and Ecuador. They seem like men after Chavez’s own heart, which could be why he is going to such great lengths to defend them………
- Be aware that this next story may conjure up old wounds and scars for you just like it did for me. Any kid who ever wanted a pony and never got one never forgets that trauma and the sight of three Shetland ponies taking a stroll along Interstate 495 south in Middleborough, Mass. on Sunday evening was just one big tease for those who never got the pony they so badly wanted. State police were called to the scene and determined that the animals escaped from a nearby farm and somehow made their way over to the highway, near exit 3. "They're a bunch of hellions," said Bill Morgan, the owner of Lady, Fancy and Shadow. “They're mischievous. There's always one in the pack that's a ring leader and they seem to follow this black and white one here, Shadow ... the trouble maker." Well, you name a pony Shadow and what do you expect? It’s like naming your kid Killer; what do you expect? Traffic came to a virtual halt once the ponies got loose after they somehow managed to open a back gate and head straight for the highway. "I was down in Mattapoisset and got a call from the Middleborough police department that they were on 495 and of course, my heart was going boomp, boomp, boomp, but it turned out all right," Morgan said. Mustering all of their horse-wrangling skills learn in trooper boot camp, the deputies who responded to the scene staged an old-fashioned roundup to get the ponies loaded into a van and back to their corral. Morgan turns out to be a guy you have to love even if he can’t keep his horses on the farm, as he has four miniature horses total and says all had been mistreated and malnourished when he rescued them. "You can tell the story ends well, but it could have been disastrous. We're very thankful to the state police and to the dog officer in Middleborough," Morgan said. To resolve his problem, the farmer purchased a new padlock for the corral gate. Here’s hoping that keeps you one step ahead of your mischievous horses, Bill……..
- After naming your kid Apple, it’s hard to hit a new low in life. It pains me to say this about Gwyneth Paltrow because she’s married to the lead singer of a really good rock band, Chris Martin of Coldplay, but Paltrow may have found the only possible way to eclipse the horror of naming her child after a fruit by deciding to add "country music singer" to her resume. She has recorded "Country Strong," a new single released Monday to country music radio stations nationwide. Never is their a defense for anyone recording and releasing a country music song, so I have nothing kind to say about Paltrow here. She recorded the song as the title track to the upcoming film of the same name, which stars her as a fallen country singer looking to make a comeback with the help of a young songwriter. Sounds…..umm, bad. Not just because of the country music angle, either. The plot sounds predictable, contrived and forgettable and I haven’t even seen one frame of the movie yet. But hey, it should be a great holiday film to torture the family with, as it opens Dec. 22. Never has staying in house crowded with annoying relatives in town for Christmas seemed so much more appealing than seeing a movie. The soundtrack will precede the film and it will be released Oct. 26. Paltrow has tried her hand at music before, teaming with Huey Lewis to perform a cover of the Smokey Robinson song "Cruisin'" for the 2000 film "Duets.” Other actresses, most notably the über-hot Scarlett Johansson and Zoey Deschanel, have had very positive results in releasing albums with established recording artists as their guides (Pete Yorn and M. Ward, respectively), but the salient point to remember with both of these examples is that THEY WEREN’T RELEASING COUNTRY MUSIC. No one sounds good singing country music and Gwyneth Paltrow isn’t any exception to that rule………
- 3-D movies haven’t caught on quite like Hollywood expected them to and now the industry is left to figure out why. Sure, the increased ticket price for 3-D ducats has led to more income for studios, but 3-D films aren’t drawing the huge numbers that many experts expected just a few years ago. Overall movie attendance has steadily declined over the past decade and recent research revealed that attendance thus far in 2010 is down 2.2 percent from where it was at this time last year. Memorial Day weekend is typically a huge draw at the local multiplex, but this year it drew the smallest audience in 17 years. Ironically, the force-feeding of subpar movies into 3-D format may be contributing heavily to the attendance decline. A recent survey of moviegoers found increasing discontent with 3-D films, which typically cost $4 more than non 3-D fare. When you couple movie-on-demand services and the faltering economy, paying extra for a movie - especially with a date or multiple family members in tow - becomes a non-starter for patrons. A prime example of 3-D’s failure to capture the imagination of moviegoers is The Last Airbender, M. Night Shyamalan's massive flop at the box office. Legendary film critic Roger Ebert recently called Hollywood's rush to 3-D every film "suicidal" and described 3-D pricing as "a form of extortion for parents." He lit up Airbender, calling it an "agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented." But it’s not just the higher cost of 3-D films that is upsetting fans. The process to create the 3-D effect can leave films noticeably darker and washed out, making for a less appealing product. Because the 3-D process requires a scene to be separated into an image for each eye, light levels are about half that of 2-D films. As a non-fan of the 3-D format, I can’t say any of this comes as a huge surprise to me and I wouldn’t expect it to change any time soon………
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