- Way to go Neil Young, you freaking hippie. Thanks to you and your battery-powered car, an entire warehouse in San Francisco has gone up in flames. That’s right, the anti-W. (which I love) rocker’s fuel-efficient car has been linked to a warehouse fire in San Francisco. Young’s converted 1959 Lincoln Continental, which was actually the inspiration for Young's 2009 album, “Fork in the Road,” burst into flames because of a malfunction in its charging system. Several vintage guitars and pieces of memorabilia owned by the rocker also went up in smoke, so at least Neil suffered a bit for this as well. The 10,000-square-foot warehouse contained paintings, instruments and vintage cars owned by Young, including the LincVolt and Young was quick to blame the blaze on "human error." That’s not the same story being told by authorities, who fingered the battery-powered whip for the fire. "The car was plugged in to charge and left unattended," Young wrote. "The wall charging system was not completely tested and had never been left unattended. A mistake was made. It was not the fault of the car." Thankfully, firefighters arrived on the scene quickly and managed to save around 70 percent of the warehouse's contents. Unfortunately, the building, located in San Francisco's San Carlos neighborhood sustained damage estimated at around $850,000. Ironically, Young was planning to rebuild the LincVolt using pieces of a similar Lincoln Continental, given to him by his wife for his 65th birthday. He has chronicled the vehicle’s conversion in a series of online videos, detailing its changeover to relying on electric batteries and a generator powered by bio-diesel. Perhaps it’s time to work on ways to fireproof storage facilities as part of your enviro-friendly endeavors, Neil………
- Someone sounds a bit crabby, Mark Cuban. Just because you lost out in attempts to buy the Chicago Cubs and Texas Rangers within the past few years is no reason to get all snotty and say that you have no plans to bid on the Houston Astros now that current owner Drayton McClane is putting the team up for sale. "No interest in buying the Astros," Cuban wrote in an email. One can't help but think that Cuban is acting like a bit of a petulant five-year-old in this case, given that he’s based in Texas and has a chance to bid on another team from the state. But perhaps it’s not a matter of being cranky over losing out on bidding for the Rangers…..Cuban did say last year that he would be interested in buying the Los Angeles Dodgers if the right deal presented itself. There’s still a chance the Dodgers will be going up for sale once the divorce proceedings of the team’s current owners, Frank and Jamie McCourt, are wrapped up. As for Cuban’s failed bid to buy the Rangers, his group, which included Houston businessman Jim Crane, made a $598 million bid for the Rangers during an August auction in federal bankruptcy court. Instead, a group led by Nolan Ryan and Chuck Greenberg won the auction with a $593 million bid because of how the bids were structured. Cuban refused to say why he didn't have any interest in owning the Astros, although one would have to imagine that it has a little (or a lot) to do with the reasons just mentioned……..
- Allow this to be a reminder for one and all: When heading to Manhattan and looking to ditch your vehicle in the Lincoln Tunnel and bum rush the studios of a cable network for a dance performance, don’t do so when wearing guerrilla-style camouflage outfits. This valuable life lesson comes courtesy of a Florida-based dance troupe called Club Envy, which drove for 24 hours from Jacksonville, Fla., for the chance to appear on BET's live "106th & Park" show. As anyone who has spent even a few hours in or around Manhattan knows, traffic is typically the biggest obstacle to face and Club Envy found that out the hard way. As their leaders drove them to the studio and became ensnared in tunnel traffic, the eight dancers decided there was only one thing they could do to make it on time - get out of the cars and run the remaining two miles through the Lincoln Tunnel. For some odd reason, other motorists were alarmed by the sight of camouflage-clad people leaving vehicles and running through the tunnel and someone alerted the authorities. Before Club Envy could make it out of the tunnel, they were stopped at gunpoint by a contingent of officers from the Port Authority police and the FBI-NYPD Joint Terrorism Task Force who had been notified of a possible terrorist threat. The showdown actually resulted in the tunnel being closed for 45 minutes on Wednesday as authorities tried to sort out the situation. In the end, police decided to escort the dancers to the show, but BET producers were forced to turn them away, as the group missed their time slot on the live show. Chalk this one up to learning an important lesson and having the story of a lifetime to share………
- International legal skirmish time, booyah! Any time two rival nations want to engage in an international hate-fest and take that hate-fest to court (or any other field of confrontation), I’m on board. Thus, I’m incredibly excited about Costa Rica taking its bitter border dispute with Nicaragua to international court. The two nations have been at odds over Costa Rican claims that its territory has been invaded. But when someone infringes upon your land, you have but a few options. If you’re a total wuss of a nation, you can do nothing and let your neighboring country take what it wants. For those who tend toward violent and apocalyptic means of settling disputes, you can simply bust out the nuclear codes, press that big red button and nuke them off the map. Or you can file lawsuit at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, which is the option Costa Rica's foreign ministry chose on Thursday. The suit claims that Nicaragua’s actions “threaten imminent and irreparable harm" to Costa Rica and asks the court to stop "the construction of a canal on Costa Rican soil," according a statement released by the foreign ministry. The entire combustible situation is over Calero Island, a parcel of land on the Atlantic coast. Costa Rica claims the land as its own and alleges that Nicaraguan troops are in Costa Rican territory. Furthermore, it claims that in addition to the Nicaraguan troops, a dredging project in the river is dumping sediment on its side of the border, and that a Costa Rican flag in the area was replaced with a Nicaraguan flag. Nicaragua also had the kahones to complain that Costa Rica has broken diplomatic relations between the countries. Gee, ya think? You (allegedly) invaded their country and having been tearing up their land, so I can see where they might be a little perturbed. Regardless of how this one ends, it should provide some great international fireworks and if nothing else, make things more than a little awkward at Latin America’s Thanksgiving get-together next week……….
- How do you know that your life has bottomed out, blasted right through the bottom of life’s barrel and kept on going? When you’re deemed unfit and not reliable enough to play a porn star in a movie, that’s when. Yup, I’m looking right at you, Lindsay Lohan. Locked in to play the one role she was clearly meant to play - that of legendary porn actress Linda Lovelace - Lohan simply could not stay in her shoes long enough. The director for Inferno, the upcoming Lovelace biopic, announced this week that he will be recasting Lohan’s role as the Deep Throat actress. Director Matthew Wilder had been supportive of Lohan despite her myriad legal troubles, insisting that he would wait until she fully completed rehab to start filming the movie. His patience apparently ran out after Lohan checked into the Betty Ford Center after violating her probation earlier this fall. “We have stuck by Lindsay very patiently for a long time with a lot of love and support. Ultimately, the impossibility of insuring her — and some other issues — have made it impossible for us to go forward,” Wilder stated. Of course, he’s far from the only producer or director to pass over Lohan for a movie role because the film’s insurer wouldn’t sign off on her as a member of the cast. Besides, Lohan has slightly more important issues to worry about at this point, what with being an unabashed lush who is probably headed back to jail and simply cannot shake her affinity for the Colombian nose candy and the drinky-drinky………
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