- Would you like to own a piece of the financially strapped star of classic ’80s sitcoms “Taxi” and “Who’s the Boss?” Do you want to crash permanently in the former pad of the dude who once played Alyssa Milano’s TV dad? If so, your time has come. Actor Tony Danza’s Park City, Utah mountain home is now on the market for the very reasonable price of $2.7 million. That number may seem steep, but the median Park City list price is $775,00 and Park City is after all the place where the rich and privileged go to ski and escape the world they are otherwise forced to share with us commoners. Either Danza’s love of skiing has waned of late or he needs some extra cash, because the Brooklyn-born actor was offering the Utah home for short-term season rental as far back as 2008. Either no one took him up on that offer or the rentals have been few and far enough between that continuing in the landlord role just wasn’t that appealing. According to the property listing, the home was built in 1988 and sports ski chalet musts like stone and cedar throughout the interior and exterior. The home’s expansive great room includes floor-to-ceiling windows and a large stone fireplace and all told, the structure is 4,800 sq. feet on a nearly half-acre lot. Its four bedrooms and four bathrooms mean you’ll have plenty of places to rest, ice and recuperate after that nasty spill on a double diamond trail or when your first attempt at snowboarding goes awry. Oh, and there’s also a heated driveway so you don’t have to trouble yourself shoveling mountains of snow, along with an elevator reach all four stories of the house in case you actually do incapacitate yourself on the slopes. Looking at all of its great features, asking why Danza would give up such a sweet pad is an obvious response. He did receive an Emmy nomination for his guest role on “The Practice” and has scored small roles in several films of late, but those gigs likely don’t pay enough to hold onto a Park City vacation home a person might use one or two months out of the year. Danza can only hope to turn the same sort of profit he scored on his Sherman Oaks, Calif. home, which he completely rebuilt after the Northridge Earthquake in 1994 and sold in 2007 at a listing price of $6.15 million. Of course, his celebrity star has faded substantially since then, so odds are he’ll have to settle for significantly less this time around…………
- DE-NIED. Moammar Gadhafi made a hollow offer to NATO to bring its ongoing war on his regime to an end and NATO shot the offer down with prejudice. The conflict will continue and a NATO official said that its operations will go on as long as civilians in Libya are threatened. Gadhafi’s offer rang especially hollow after witnesses in the besieged western Libyan port city of Misrata said that forces loyal to Gadhafi shelled the city indiscriminately again Saturday, resulting in numerous casualties. In a complete coincidence, the attacks occurred just hours after Gadhafi once again demanded that rebels in the city surrender and urged NATO to accept a ceasefire and to begin peace negotiations. Aside from killing hundreds of innocent civilians, Gadhafi’s forces haven’t made much progress thus far in the conflict. That, along with the realization that civilians are still in grave danger on a daily basis, probably inspired NATO’s rejection of Gadhafi’s offer. As is his custom, the kooky leader made his demands during a rambling speech on Libyan TV. The address, which aired early Saturday and lasted close to an hour and a half, was meandering and confusing, but the main point seemed to be reiterating previous claims that Gadhafi holds no official government post from which to resign and that he would never leave his country. Only Gadhafi seems to believe that he truly did hand power over to the people after the revolution, but that is enough to keep him going and “defending” the country his ancestors defended against Italy in 1911. His speech also cited Saturday’s importance as the anniversary of the Battle of Cartaba, during the 1911 Italian invasion of Libya. In one of the more pointed portions of his soliloquy, Gadhafi vowed to take the current battle, which he calls an "open war," to Italian soil. As a backdrop to the dictator’s monologue, NATO planes bombed a Libyan government building in the capital Tripoli during the broadcast. The TV signal cut in and out during the speech, but Gadhafi either did not know or simply didn’t care. He went on speaking and condemned NATO for trying to kill him. In a mocking tone, Gadhafi asked if the bombings were part of U.N. Security Council resolution 1970 and whether destroying Libyan government buildings was a method of protecting civilians. Libya's rebel Transitional National Council derided the speech, with deputy head Abdel Hafiz Ghoga saying Gadhafi's true message to the world is clear: that he is mocking the will of the international community by saying one thing to the world while continuing the brutalize his own people to remain in power. A cynic might even argue that Gadhafi made his offer to NATO knowing it would be rejected and believing he could use that rejection for propaganda purposes…………
- How do you like your bake sales? With a lot of colorful, sweet and calorie-heavy treats crafted by moms and grandmas who want to raise money for the local Little League team or by a group of politically motivated agitators calling themselves a conservative activist group? For those seeking the former, finding the right bake sale shouldn’t be difficult because they’re going on nonstop in virtually every town in America. But for anyone who likes the latter type of bake sale, you probably missed the one and only chance you’ll ever have by not being there when the Young Conservatives of Texas hosted an affirmative action bake sale on the campus of Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Tex. on Friday. This particular bake sale was unique because of its blatantly racist pricing system, which most bake sale operators simply don’t have the kahones to implement. Organizers sold the same cookies at different prices, depending on the buyer’s race, gender and ethnicity. For example, whites and Asians paid higher prices for their cookie, brownies, cupcakes and other treats, while African-Americans and Hispanics were able to buy the same items at the lower prices. Women of every race were able to buy cheaper treats than men of the same race and for some bizarre reason, many people on the TTU campus had an issue with the bake sale and the message behind it: satirizing and drawing attention to what the Young Conservatives of Texas deem the injustice of favoritism in academia. Their pricing system - at least according to them - was derived from which groups of people are most disenfranchised by the idea of affirmative action. In other words, the people who may lose scholarships or admission to a school or university because that university is required to set aside a certain number of spots for minorities. The message is far from fresh and underprivileged white men have been beating the same drum for as long as affirmative action has existed. Finding a true winner in the controversial event wasn’t difficult. It wasn’t the Young Conservatives of Texas, nor was it their political rivals who felt the group made itself look like a collection of rich, whiny jackasses. The true winner? Native Americans, who ate for free. No word on whether the white bake sale operators went and ripped the desserts of those Native Americans, then replaced them with week-old, moldy, rock-hard brownies…………
- Dammit, this cannot happen! For no reason and under no circumstances can the tobacco industry be allowed to win anything in the United States. Whether it’s a lawsuit, a case in mediation, a game of checkers or a footrace to see who gets to play on the jungle gym first, these imbeciles must be beat. Merchants of death sticks must be beaten down, demoralized and run from America’s shores. That’s definitely not what happened this week, when Philip Morris USA and other major industry companies won a lawsuit Friday filed by 37 Missouri hospitals seeking $455 million in reimbursements for treating sick smoking patients without insurance. It was a massive case, involving six tobacco companies. The case, filed as City of St. Louis v. American Tobacco Co., featured hospitals claiming that cigarette companies were liable for the costs incurred to their consumers by delivering an “unreasonably dangerous product.” These hospitals treated dozens of patients with smoking-related health problems who did not have health insurance and could not pay their bills, leading to $455 million in unpaid hospital bills. Of course, Big Tobacco couldn’t want to gloat after winning its first court battle in what seems like 50 years. "The jury agreed with Philip Morris USA that ordinary cigarettes are not negligently designed or defective," Murray Garnick, Altria Client Services senior vice president and associate general counsel, said in a statement. "Compelling evidence was presented to the jury, including testimony from hospital witnesses, that confirmed the hospitals were not financially damaged as they asserted," Ronald S. Milstein, Lorillard senior vice president and general counsel, added in a separate statement. Enjoy it now, you jackasses. Your products have been killing people and making them suffer for decades and even though it flies in the face of everything the American judicial system is about (although expediency, logic and fairness do the same thing), any tobacco company should be automatically declared the loser in any court case before a single motion is filed or a single witness testifies. Even if this particular case seemed to swing on an apparent lack of financial injury suffered by the Missouri hospitals, the actual facts are irrelevant. Does anyone involved with this indefensible verdict - other than the tobacco companies themselves - really believe it’s a good thing when the companies involved in the case all saw their stock prices jump in the aftermath of the case? Remember, the goal is to drive them out of business, not to fortify their position in the economy…………
- Some fights never end. As long as there is one man left to fight for it, no cause is lost……or so the saying goes. Utah attorney general Mark Shurtleff is one such man, willing to fight the seemingly lost battle. His cause is a worthy one: killing the albatross that is the Bowl Championship Series, the asinine postseason system that ruins what should be great about college football on an annual basis. Rather than having a fair system to give deserving teams a chance at a national championship, the BCS creates a mashup of unexplainable computer rankings and polls to come up with two major conference teams to play for the title. That system inevitably leaves non-BCS-conference teams on the outside looking in and that annual injustice has Shurtleff’s dander up. he is still looking to file a federal lawsuit aimed at disbanding the BCS system and has put out a request for proposals from national antitrust firms to help with the case. Shurtleff said Thursday he expects the suit, accusing the BCS of being an illegal monopoly, to be filed by this summer. The suit will seek to-be-determined damages for schools including the University of Utah and Boise State that have lost out on millions of dollars under the BCS because the existing system keeps non-preferred programs and conferences out of the mix for the title game. Even though Utah is fixing that problem by joining the Pac-12 Conference in July, Shurtleff was quick to state that the move changes nothing because the system is still inherently flawed. The announcement comes just one week before conference commissioners and athletic directors are set to meet in New Orleans. Auditioning antitrust firms and selecting one will take at least one month, Shurtleff said, and in the meantime he is seeking other states to join in filing the lawsuit. "But if not, I'll do it alone," he said. Now THAT is the sort of dogmatism I like to see. Give a giant middle finger to everyone who dares to suggest that an attorney general’s time would be better spent on other issues and keep this fight alive…………
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Friday, April 29, 2011
Own a pedophile haven, MLBers try to tough it out and opposition to beefcake calendars
- The call has gone out an apparently, not enough people have responded to what could fairly be deemed the opportunity of a lifetime. For a limited time, anyone with a few hundred million dollars lying around could own the world’s foremost online haven for pedophiles and their 9-year-old prey: MySpace. That’s right, News Corp. is looking for initial bids for the world’s fourth- or fifth-best social networking site by the end of the week and expects to announce a deal around June. To win the battle, potential buyers will have to beat out a field of at least a half-dozen suitors, including private equity firms. Be advised that News Corp. is seeking for minimum offers of $100 million, which is probably not the sort of return on investment the news giant had when it acquired MySpace for $580 million in 2005. When the asking price for a commodity is about one-sixth the purchase price just six years after purchase, it’s fair to say your investment hasn’t panned out the way you had hoped. Selling the pedophile paradise became even more difficult once News Corp. opened up MySpace's financial books for closer inspection in February. The number of interested parties plummeted once MySpace’s troubled finances were laid out for the world to see. At present, the chief pursuers for the troubled site are private equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners and Criterion Capital Partners, which also owns social network Bebo. Rumors about a potential sale have also hinted at the possibility of a buyer eschewing an outright acquisition in favor of structuring a deal to leave News Corp. with a minority stake. An outside contender to by MySpace is an unidentified Chinese Internet company with whom News Corp. has held talks. Why not? After all, China already owns a ginormous chunk of America’s national debt; it may as well own the social networking existence of the vast majority of our pedophiles as well……….
- Professional athletes typically take pride in playing through injuries and being tough no matter how much pain they’re in (unless they are soccer players, of course), but that insistence on toughness can come back to hurt them in the long run, sometimes sooner than expected. Minnesota Twins All-Star catcher Joe Mauer is experiencing that reality firsthand, having been on the disabled list since April 15 with bilateral leg weakness, a condition team doctors say was brought on by a light workload in spring training while he worked his way back from arthroscopic surgery on his left knee. Suffering yet another leg injury has revived the debate over whether the Twins should move the three-time AL batting champion moving to another position to keep him healthy, but Mauer wants no part of the discussion. "I just think I can help the team a lot better when I'm behind the plate," Mauer said. "That's what I signed here to do is to catch. I think we're a better ballclub when I'm behind the plate." The signing he alluded to was the eight-year, $184 million contract he inked prior to the season, a deal the Twins would like to see him healthy enough to play all the way through. The team knew Mauer would likely not be at full strength at the start of the season after having surgery on his leg in December and indeed, he only played in eight games during spring training with the hopes of having less wear on his repaired leg going into the regular season. Twins head athletic trainer Rick McWane had a slightly different take on the situation and theorized that the soreness Mauer is experiencing is because his body just wasn't strong enough at the start of the season. "He, I don't think, has had the repetitions either for catching or anything else," McWane said. "Once the season started, he started to wear down." McWane seemed to suggest that playing more, not less, during spring training would have been the best choice for Mauer, who admitted he "really started to go downhill" after the second series of the season. His numbers were decidedly un-Mauer-like, with a .235 average, no homers and four RBIs in nine games. "I was out there fighting it and my body just said I couldn't go anymore," Mauer stated. "It's tough to admit that, especially with the things that guys play through. But it gets to a point where your body says you can't go anymore." He has no timetable for his return to the field and has yet to resume baseball activities. On top of the leg weakness, he has also been bogged down by a bout of the flu that circulated through the clubhouse. Not exactly the start to the season the Twins had hoped for from the franchise……….
- Not everyone in the world circled Friday on their calendar to engross themselves in the “drama” of the royal wedding. In Syria, an increasingly angry populace braced itself for a day of protests across the country against President Bashar Assad and those planning to take to the streets readied themselves for a crackdown. The increasingly popular call for a “Friday of Rage” went out across the country, with the raging to start after the Muslim noon prayers. With security forces maintaining a heavy presence in major cities and towns, including the restive city of Dara’a, that all but assured violent clashes. The inspiration for the “Friday of Rage” was commemorating the deaths of at least 112 Syrians who were killed last Friday, the greatest number of casualties yet seen in one day and a wealth of carnage that led to international condemnation for the Syrian government. As the day began Friday, media outlets reported gunfire in several cities and witnesses relayed stories of troops firing into the air to stop them from gathering Friday prayers. An eyewitness in the city of Latakia claimed to have seen police open fire on demonstrators there, injuring at least five. On some level, the events in Syria are uplifting because they show the power of one riot to inspire another and how the uprisings in Egypt, Yemen, Libya and other African and Middle Eastern nations have inspired the Syrian people to rise up as well. Yet even with those riots setting up a perfect storm for a Syrian uprising, the riots have taken many in the country by surprise, including several prominent figures in the political opposition. Assad has been president since 2000, inheriting office from his father Hafez, one of the Arab world’s most controlling and repressive rulers. He loomed over the nation with an iron fist for three decades and responded with brutal and excessive force when any dissent reared its ugly head. In 1982, he led a sweeping military campaign, including air attacks, to crush an uprising by Sunni Islamists centered in Hama. The death toll from the campaign was estimated to have exceeded 1,000 and possibly to have been as high as 40,000. The casualties from this new uprising may not have reached those levels yet, but with opposition groups vowing to stand their ground and fight to the death, things could be headed in that direction. Based on the possibility of demonstrations in Dara’a, the government reportedly moved 45 military units to the city on Thursday in a show of force designed to intimidate and silence dissenting voices. Snipers were posted in every street and alley and residents lamented shortages of bread and other foods, baby formula and water as they continued to live in virtual isolation. Human rights groups estimate that some 450 people have died since major protests began in the country on March 15 and with a “Friday of Rage” and other protests in the offing, that number is assured of trending upward…………
- After a lengthy and often controversial musical career, who knew that British rocker Morrissey actually fancied himself as the next Tolstoy? Okay, so technically Morrissey’s upcoming memoir only checks in at 600 pages, but it is the rocker’s equivalent of “War and Peace” and this thick, weighty tome could soon be on the shelves (hopefully reinforced shelves) of Borders and Barnes and Noble locations around the globe soon. The former Smiths frontman is looking to Penguin Books to publish the work through their 'Classics' series though the book franchise typically distributes in established literary classics. That would indicate a relatively high opinion of the book on the part of its author and when Morrissey’s spokesperson issued a statement about the book and the request for Penguin to include it in its “Classics” series, that indication proved accurate: "There is a natural fit between Morrissey's sensibility, his artistic achievements and Penguin Classics. [His] book could be published as a Penguin Classic because it is a classic in the making," the spokesperson explained. Those boastful words stand in stark contrast to the story Morrissey was selling prior to shopping his book. He claimed in one interview that he wasn't sure anyone would want to read his autobiography. "I'm really not that interesting, so I don't know why I've written so much," he fretted. "I have been through the whole life. I just wonder if 660 pages are too much for people to bear. And then I sit down and think, well, are six pages too much for people to bear? I really don't know. [It's] baffling." At the time, he also spoke of how he was in the "re-drafting, trimming stage," of writing his autobiography. If this is the “trimmed” version of the book, then I don’t think I want to know how long the original version was. In its 600 pages, the book is expected to cover everything from Morrissey’s relationship with controversial bandmate Johnny Marr to his relationship with U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron. No word on whether it will explain why the heck Morrissey is so freaking melancholy all the time………
- Maybe this is off-base, but aren’t hunky city firefighters supposed to pose for calendars to delight the masses and appeal to the legions of ladies who love the idea of a strapping hero saving lives and rescuing puppies and kids from burning buildings? Not in Philadelphia, they’re not. Otherwise, the Philadelphia Fire Department would not be in the midst of its current drama involving New York-based photographer Katherine Kostreva and firefighter Jack Slivinski. Slivinski, a chiseled city firefighter, posed shirtless for Kostreva last week in front of the Logan Circle fountain. Slivinski and hunky firefighters from 11 other major cities were supposed to be featured in a calendar scheduled to be released later this year by Kostreva's company, On Point Publishing, with all of the proceeds are going to charity. Slivinski and Bill Gault, president of Fire Fighters Local 22, planned to give their share of the profits from the calendar to the widows of local firefighters. It seemed like a great idea, a bit of harmless fun and a chance to entertain the masses while also helping a deserving group of people. But as with so many plans in which small-minded bureaucrats are involved, a win-win situation wasn’t going to happen without a fight. The numb-nutted bureaucrat in this case was Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers, who ripped Slivinski’s coveted assignment with Engine 1, 4th Street and Girard Avenue from him and launched an internal investigation for violating several protocols in posing for the calendar. Why the outrage over something so harmless? Ayers claims the department has long been opposed to its members posing for "beefcake calendars" because, well, they don’t buy into the stereotype of dreamy firefighters being eye candy for the ladies. "We don't sell sex, we sell safety.," Ayers said. "That's been our mantra for the longest time." According to Ayers, the union and all of the department's firefighters know that they must seek approval from their superiors if they want to be featured in an outside publicatio. Slivinski didn't ask for permission and as such, he’s in deep sh*t. Gault tried to step in and diffuse some of the tension by covering for Slivinski, saying, "I should've called the commissioner and let him know, and I didn't. At the same time, this was done with no malice. He [Slivinski] is a good guy, and we wanted to do something to benefit our widows." Whether that will be enough to get Slivinski’s post back from him is up to those conducting the internal review. The assignment with Rescue 1 is considered a top assignment because of its status as an elite unit that receives advanced training. For the time being, Slivinski is being transferred to another unit and not given a chance to work any overtime. Yet Ayers insists he "has nothing against" Slivinski and is merely following protocol. Slivinski faces penalties ranging from having a letter of reprimand added to his personnel file to a suspension. Worst still, his photo likely won't be used in the calendar after all the trouble he has been through. Maybe he can take solace from the fact that, as Ayers alleges, his suffering will benefit the children. "We get letters from children. They look up to us," Ayers said. "We cannot allow them to be showing nipples in photographs of Philadelphia firefighters." Umm, the nipples of female firefighters, sure. But dudes…….not as big of an issue. Kostreva has continued on with her project and is photographing firefighters in New Orleans and has plans to photograph others in San Francisco, Chicago, St. Louis and Las Vegas. "Everything is working out perfectly with the other cities. This is the only one where we're having a problem," she said. "Everybody has pure intentions," she said. "I think the commissioner is just overreacting." Good to know that there are still a few small-minded ass hats around who can’t enjoy a little harmless fun…………
- Professional athletes typically take pride in playing through injuries and being tough no matter how much pain they’re in (unless they are soccer players, of course), but that insistence on toughness can come back to hurt them in the long run, sometimes sooner than expected. Minnesota Twins All-Star catcher Joe Mauer is experiencing that reality firsthand, having been on the disabled list since April 15 with bilateral leg weakness, a condition team doctors say was brought on by a light workload in spring training while he worked his way back from arthroscopic surgery on his left knee. Suffering yet another leg injury has revived the debate over whether the Twins should move the three-time AL batting champion moving to another position to keep him healthy, but Mauer wants no part of the discussion. "I just think I can help the team a lot better when I'm behind the plate," Mauer said. "That's what I signed here to do is to catch. I think we're a better ballclub when I'm behind the plate." The signing he alluded to was the eight-year, $184 million contract he inked prior to the season, a deal the Twins would like to see him healthy enough to play all the way through. The team knew Mauer would likely not be at full strength at the start of the season after having surgery on his leg in December and indeed, he only played in eight games during spring training with the hopes of having less wear on his repaired leg going into the regular season. Twins head athletic trainer Rick McWane had a slightly different take on the situation and theorized that the soreness Mauer is experiencing is because his body just wasn't strong enough at the start of the season. "He, I don't think, has had the repetitions either for catching or anything else," McWane said. "Once the season started, he started to wear down." McWane seemed to suggest that playing more, not less, during spring training would have been the best choice for Mauer, who admitted he "really started to go downhill" after the second series of the season. His numbers were decidedly un-Mauer-like, with a .235 average, no homers and four RBIs in nine games. "I was out there fighting it and my body just said I couldn't go anymore," Mauer stated. "It's tough to admit that, especially with the things that guys play through. But it gets to a point where your body says you can't go anymore." He has no timetable for his return to the field and has yet to resume baseball activities. On top of the leg weakness, he has also been bogged down by a bout of the flu that circulated through the clubhouse. Not exactly the start to the season the Twins had hoped for from the franchise……….
- Not everyone in the world circled Friday on their calendar to engross themselves in the “drama” of the royal wedding. In Syria, an increasingly angry populace braced itself for a day of protests across the country against President Bashar Assad and those planning to take to the streets readied themselves for a crackdown. The increasingly popular call for a “Friday of Rage” went out across the country, with the raging to start after the Muslim noon prayers. With security forces maintaining a heavy presence in major cities and towns, including the restive city of Dara’a, that all but assured violent clashes. The inspiration for the “Friday of Rage” was commemorating the deaths of at least 112 Syrians who were killed last Friday, the greatest number of casualties yet seen in one day and a wealth of carnage that led to international condemnation for the Syrian government. As the day began Friday, media outlets reported gunfire in several cities and witnesses relayed stories of troops firing into the air to stop them from gathering Friday prayers. An eyewitness in the city of Latakia claimed to have seen police open fire on demonstrators there, injuring at least five. On some level, the events in Syria are uplifting because they show the power of one riot to inspire another and how the uprisings in Egypt, Yemen, Libya and other African and Middle Eastern nations have inspired the Syrian people to rise up as well. Yet even with those riots setting up a perfect storm for a Syrian uprising, the riots have taken many in the country by surprise, including several prominent figures in the political opposition. Assad has been president since 2000, inheriting office from his father Hafez, one of the Arab world’s most controlling and repressive rulers. He loomed over the nation with an iron fist for three decades and responded with brutal and excessive force when any dissent reared its ugly head. In 1982, he led a sweeping military campaign, including air attacks, to crush an uprising by Sunni Islamists centered in Hama. The death toll from the campaign was estimated to have exceeded 1,000 and possibly to have been as high as 40,000. The casualties from this new uprising may not have reached those levels yet, but with opposition groups vowing to stand their ground and fight to the death, things could be headed in that direction. Based on the possibility of demonstrations in Dara’a, the government reportedly moved 45 military units to the city on Thursday in a show of force designed to intimidate and silence dissenting voices. Snipers were posted in every street and alley and residents lamented shortages of bread and other foods, baby formula and water as they continued to live in virtual isolation. Human rights groups estimate that some 450 people have died since major protests began in the country on March 15 and with a “Friday of Rage” and other protests in the offing, that number is assured of trending upward…………
- After a lengthy and often controversial musical career, who knew that British rocker Morrissey actually fancied himself as the next Tolstoy? Okay, so technically Morrissey’s upcoming memoir only checks in at 600 pages, but it is the rocker’s equivalent of “War and Peace” and this thick, weighty tome could soon be on the shelves (hopefully reinforced shelves) of Borders and Barnes and Noble locations around the globe soon. The former Smiths frontman is looking to Penguin Books to publish the work through their 'Classics' series though the book franchise typically distributes in established literary classics. That would indicate a relatively high opinion of the book on the part of its author and when Morrissey’s spokesperson issued a statement about the book and the request for Penguin to include it in its “Classics” series, that indication proved accurate: "There is a natural fit between Morrissey's sensibility, his artistic achievements and Penguin Classics. [His] book could be published as a Penguin Classic because it is a classic in the making," the spokesperson explained. Those boastful words stand in stark contrast to the story Morrissey was selling prior to shopping his book. He claimed in one interview that he wasn't sure anyone would want to read his autobiography. "I'm really not that interesting, so I don't know why I've written so much," he fretted. "I have been through the whole life. I just wonder if 660 pages are too much for people to bear. And then I sit down and think, well, are six pages too much for people to bear? I really don't know. [It's] baffling." At the time, he also spoke of how he was in the "re-drafting, trimming stage," of writing his autobiography. If this is the “trimmed” version of the book, then I don’t think I want to know how long the original version was. In its 600 pages, the book is expected to cover everything from Morrissey’s relationship with controversial bandmate Johnny Marr to his relationship with U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron. No word on whether it will explain why the heck Morrissey is so freaking melancholy all the time………
- Maybe this is off-base, but aren’t hunky city firefighters supposed to pose for calendars to delight the masses and appeal to the legions of ladies who love the idea of a strapping hero saving lives and rescuing puppies and kids from burning buildings? Not in Philadelphia, they’re not. Otherwise, the Philadelphia Fire Department would not be in the midst of its current drama involving New York-based photographer Katherine Kostreva and firefighter Jack Slivinski. Slivinski, a chiseled city firefighter, posed shirtless for Kostreva last week in front of the Logan Circle fountain. Slivinski and hunky firefighters from 11 other major cities were supposed to be featured in a calendar scheduled to be released later this year by Kostreva's company, On Point Publishing, with all of the proceeds are going to charity. Slivinski and Bill Gault, president of Fire Fighters Local 22, planned to give their share of the profits from the calendar to the widows of local firefighters. It seemed like a great idea, a bit of harmless fun and a chance to entertain the masses while also helping a deserving group of people. But as with so many plans in which small-minded bureaucrats are involved, a win-win situation wasn’t going to happen without a fight. The numb-nutted bureaucrat in this case was Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers, who ripped Slivinski’s coveted assignment with Engine 1, 4th Street and Girard Avenue from him and launched an internal investigation for violating several protocols in posing for the calendar. Why the outrage over something so harmless? Ayers claims the department has long been opposed to its members posing for "beefcake calendars" because, well, they don’t buy into the stereotype of dreamy firefighters being eye candy for the ladies. "We don't sell sex, we sell safety.," Ayers said. "That's been our mantra for the longest time." According to Ayers, the union and all of the department's firefighters know that they must seek approval from their superiors if they want to be featured in an outside publicatio. Slivinski didn't ask for permission and as such, he’s in deep sh*t. Gault tried to step in and diffuse some of the tension by covering for Slivinski, saying, "I should've called the commissioner and let him know, and I didn't. At the same time, this was done with no malice. He [Slivinski] is a good guy, and we wanted to do something to benefit our widows." Whether that will be enough to get Slivinski’s post back from him is up to those conducting the internal review. The assignment with Rescue 1 is considered a top assignment because of its status as an elite unit that receives advanced training. For the time being, Slivinski is being transferred to another unit and not given a chance to work any overtime. Yet Ayers insists he "has nothing against" Slivinski and is merely following protocol. Slivinski faces penalties ranging from having a letter of reprimand added to his personnel file to a suspension. Worst still, his photo likely won't be used in the calendar after all the trouble he has been through. Maybe he can take solace from the fact that, as Ayers alleges, his suffering will benefit the children. "We get letters from children. They look up to us," Ayers said. "We cannot allow them to be showing nipples in photographs of Philadelphia firefighters." Umm, the nipples of female firefighters, sure. But dudes…….not as big of an issue. Kostreva has continued on with her project and is photographing firefighters in New Orleans and has plans to photograph others in San Francisco, Chicago, St. Louis and Las Vegas. "Everything is working out perfectly with the other cities. This is the only one where we're having a problem," she said. "Everybody has pure intentions," she said. "I think the commissioner is just overreacting." Good to know that there are still a few small-minded ass hats around who can’t enjoy a little harmless fun…………
Thursday, April 28, 2011
How to get high by DVD, our chance to take down China and social vending machines
- Is it possible to get a contact high from a movie screen or from the flat screen in your living room? That question will soon be answered when Lil Wayne gets around to releasing the in-the-works documentary he’s been filming on his current I Am Still Music Tour. Wayne revealed last week that he has been filming select dates and will compile the footage into a tour documentary similar to Jay-Z's 2000 film, Backstage, and Russell Simmons' 1995 doc The Show. "I just felt like a movie like that hasn't come out in so long," he said. "At that time when they put those movies out, we as the fans were interested in what they were doing on the road. Nobody hasn't came around since then that was that interesting other than Young Money." The tour, which kicked off on Mar. 16, has already made stops in New York and Miami and will conclude on May 1 at the Bamboozle festival in East Rutherford, N.J. A source close to Lil Wayne revealed that DJ Scoob Doo has been shooting behind-the-scenes footage and cameras have filmed four tour dates so far. What is not known at this point is whether the film will be a theatrical release or a straight-to-DVD offering, but it should draw in a fair amount of attention either way because in spite of his extremely limited lyrical and vocal abilities, Lil Wayne is still as hot a commodity as exists in hip hop right now and again, it’s worth seeing if you can actually get baked in your living room without so much as an ounce of the hippie lettuce in the room merely by popping this DVD in and checking out footage from a tour by one of the preeminent stoners in the rap game - or any genre of music really - today. So whether you wanted to see Wayne perform on the I Am Still Music tour and couldn’t afford a ticket or if you merely want to get stoned in the comfort of your own living room without actually having to fire up your bong, this could well be the movie for you…………
- When in trouble, always bring back the guns first and ask questions later. That tidy little mantra has helped nations, business and individuals for ages and its inherent truth will now be counted on by none other than America’s most omnipresent megamart, Wal-Mart, to reverse its floundering fortunes. The ginormous retail chain said Thursday that it is bringing guns back to many of its U.S. stores in an effort to lift slumping sales after crossing weaponry off its ever-expanding list of products back in 2006. At the time, the company blamed low demand for firearms as the reason behind its decision, but pressure from anti-gun groups certainly played a role as well. Not all Wal-Mart stores stopped selling guns and about 1,300 stores currently sell rifles, shotguns and ammunition. With its big announcement (sure to please the NRA), Wal-Mart will now make those firearms available at about half of its Wal-Mart's 4,000 stores. The retailer currently sells handguns in only its stores in Alaska, where Sarah Palin and her fellow tundra-dwelling kooks love their cold, steely merchants of death. The decision to bring guns back to more of its stores was certainly much simpler for Wal-Mart than making the choice to remove them. Pressure from anti-gun groups and a decreased demand for the product is one thing, but seven straight quarters of falling sales tends to make any company desperate. By adding “merchandise variety” (and expensive merchandise variety at that), the company is hoping to compete more effectively with a growing group of competitors. Reintroducing guns is part of that effort, Wal-Mart spokesman Lorenzo Lopez said. The reintroduction of guns will be centered in areas of the country where hunting and fishing are popular activities. 'We realized there is broader appeal for guns in some areas because of sporting needs," said Lopez. For those looking for a positive lining in the possibility of guns being more readily available to those looking to shoot and kill various living things, it should be reassuring to know that the majority of the firearms sold at Wal-Mart are made in the United States. Also, gun lovers purchasing weapons at Wal-Mart still must complete appropriate forms and background checks before they can arm themselves, so it’s not all bad……….
- Everything else in the world is online and social media-oriented, so vending machines may as well join the party. PepsiCo understands this reality, which is why the company this week announced the launch of a Social Vending System, which will allow users to gift beverages to friends. The machine features an interactive touch screen allowing users to tap, swipe or even view nutritional facts for each beverage on their way to some sugary sweet refreshment. Buying an overpriced plastic bottle of Cherry Pepsi, Mountain Dew or Diet Pepsi has never been so fun or easy! But what really sets the new vending machine apart from its competitors is the capability of gifting a beverage to a friend by selecting a soda, entering a friend's name and mobile number and creating a personalized text message to announce the gift. To further personalize the gift, users can also record and a send a short video at the machine. That won't be at all awkward in a crowded public place, but what the hey. The friend on the receiving end will get a gift message accompanied by a system code that needs to be entered at a PepsiCo Social Vending system to redeem the free beverage. "Our vision is to use innovative technology to empower consumers and create new ways for them to engage with our brands, their social networks and each other at the point of purchase," Mikel Durham, Chief Innovation Officer at PepsiCo Foodservice, said in a statement. "Social Vending extends our consumers' social networks beyond the confines of their own devices and transforms a static, transaction-oriented experience into something fun and exciting they'll want to return to, again and again." The truly generous and philanthropic soda drinker will also be able to buy a drink for a complete stranger through another Social Vending system, perhaps a person in a city that is suffering through a natural disaster or weather crisis. PepsiCo calls this "Random Acts of Refreshment," a real-life version of Coke's fictional "Happiness Machine" that spouts free drinks, flowers, and pizza. With the term social media being used, the obvious question is how Facebook and Twitter are involved in the Social Vending System. The answer, for now, is that the two popular social networking sites are not lined to the project. PepsiCo representatives have hinted at their future inclusion, but no date has been given for that to happen. PepsiCo will debut a prototype of the Social Vending System at the National Automatic Merchandising Association's One Show in Chicago this week and as anyone in the know knows, the NAMAOS is, was and always will be a freaking party, so make your travel plans now, without further delay……….
- Prepare for utterly shocking news: The NCAA has decreed from its lofty, ivory tower of hypocrisy that it will not consider any new bowl applicants for a period of up to three years. Apparently, 35 bowl games resulting in the real possibility that a sub-.500 team could actually sneak its way into a postseason contest was the tipping point, leading to NCAA president Mark Emmert’s announcement Thursday. Also, the NCAA wouldn’t be a good and true bureaucracy if it didn’t form some sort of committee for the occasion and sure enough, Emmert also announced that a task force is being assembled to examine the process by which the NCAA licenses bowls. "Going forward, I want to make sure that the bowl licensing process is robust enough and thorough enough that we have great confidence that we know how a bowl is being governed," Emmert said. His words were obviously directed at the troubled Fiesta Bowl, which is currently under investigation for illegal campaign contributions and other financial misconduct. The NCAA's bowl licensing committee met with Fiesta Bowl officials Thursday morning New Orleans, but will not render its decision until a special BCS task force has concluded its discussion of the Fiesta Bowl's admitted unethical conduct. Nebraska chancellor Harvey Perlman and a yet-to-be-determined second individual will lead the new bowl licensing task force, which will include external members and evaluate aspects of bowl review, including possible expansive independent auditing. The real irony in this announcement is the focus seems to be on unethical actions by bowl officials and shady operating procedures, but the bigger problem is the NCAA green-lighting nearly every application for a new bowl game to the point that nearly 60 percent of all Division I teams earn a bowl berth, including teams with 6-6 records who lose their bowl game and end the season below the .500 mark despite, ya know, being considered good enough to play in a bowl game. But go ahead and worry about eliminating conflicts of interest from members of committees, such as the bowl licensing committee, and them taking gifts such as rounds of golf, meals or lodging from corrupt operations like the Fiesta Bowl. The good ol’ NCAA, missing most or all of the point once again………..
- This is it, America! The Chinese own a disheartening chunk of the United States’ national debt and may be plotting our eventual demise, but there is a chink in the Chinese armor and it could be just what the U.S. needs to shift the power dynamic in this relationship. After conducting its first national census in a decade, the Chinese government has unearthed a potentially huge problem: an aging populace that could derail China's booming economic growth and place a heavy burden on young Chinese. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the percentage of over-60 Chinese has risen by nearly three percentage points to 13.3 percent of the total population, or 178 million people. Conversely, there was a sharp drop in the number of young Chinese over the past decade, with under-14s making up just 16.6 percent of the population, down from 22.9 percent at the last count. Compounding the problem, the total population of China has risen over the decade by 73.9 million to a whopping 1.37 billion people. Other nations, such as Britain, have similar issues, but on a much smaller scale and with more fully developed economies. Throw China’s existing one-child policy into the mix and you have a lot of children feeling increasingly burdened by the responsibility of each caring for an "upside-down pyramid" of two parents and four grandparents. “I have been thinking about China's ageing problems for some years," said Zheng Aiwen, a fashion design student in Shanghai. "As soon as I saw the census results, I thought I have to hurry up and get married and have children, two if possible. I am quite worried about the economic pressure of caring for my parents and also about not being supported myself in my old age.” Zheng is not alone in her thinking and the census results will undoubtedly spur intense debate about easing the one-child policy. Officials have countered that the policy, which actually allows many in the countryside and some in the cities to have two children, has prevented the Chinese population from swelling by more than 400 million people over the last three decades. Lead communist Hu Jintao, technically known as the country’s president, has vowed that the country would adhere to strict family planning and a "low birth rate.” One factor helping that cause is the rising cost of living, which has made it all but impossible for most families to afford more than one child anyway. The dilemma is a large one for the Chinese, but for a country under its thumb due to immense national debts, that dilemma could be just the opportunity needed to shift paradigms, change fates and reverse fortunes. Act now, America, this is your chance……….
- When in trouble, always bring back the guns first and ask questions later. That tidy little mantra has helped nations, business and individuals for ages and its inherent truth will now be counted on by none other than America’s most omnipresent megamart, Wal-Mart, to reverse its floundering fortunes. The ginormous retail chain said Thursday that it is bringing guns back to many of its U.S. stores in an effort to lift slumping sales after crossing weaponry off its ever-expanding list of products back in 2006. At the time, the company blamed low demand for firearms as the reason behind its decision, but pressure from anti-gun groups certainly played a role as well. Not all Wal-Mart stores stopped selling guns and about 1,300 stores currently sell rifles, shotguns and ammunition. With its big announcement (sure to please the NRA), Wal-Mart will now make those firearms available at about half of its Wal-Mart's 4,000 stores. The retailer currently sells handguns in only its stores in Alaska, where Sarah Palin and her fellow tundra-dwelling kooks love their cold, steely merchants of death. The decision to bring guns back to more of its stores was certainly much simpler for Wal-Mart than making the choice to remove them. Pressure from anti-gun groups and a decreased demand for the product is one thing, but seven straight quarters of falling sales tends to make any company desperate. By adding “merchandise variety” (and expensive merchandise variety at that), the company is hoping to compete more effectively with a growing group of competitors. Reintroducing guns is part of that effort, Wal-Mart spokesman Lorenzo Lopez said. The reintroduction of guns will be centered in areas of the country where hunting and fishing are popular activities. 'We realized there is broader appeal for guns in some areas because of sporting needs," said Lopez. For those looking for a positive lining in the possibility of guns being more readily available to those looking to shoot and kill various living things, it should be reassuring to know that the majority of the firearms sold at Wal-Mart are made in the United States. Also, gun lovers purchasing weapons at Wal-Mart still must complete appropriate forms and background checks before they can arm themselves, so it’s not all bad……….
- Everything else in the world is online and social media-oriented, so vending machines may as well join the party. PepsiCo understands this reality, which is why the company this week announced the launch of a Social Vending System, which will allow users to gift beverages to friends. The machine features an interactive touch screen allowing users to tap, swipe or even view nutritional facts for each beverage on their way to some sugary sweet refreshment. Buying an overpriced plastic bottle of Cherry Pepsi, Mountain Dew or Diet Pepsi has never been so fun or easy! But what really sets the new vending machine apart from its competitors is the capability of gifting a beverage to a friend by selecting a soda, entering a friend's name and mobile number and creating a personalized text message to announce the gift. To further personalize the gift, users can also record and a send a short video at the machine. That won't be at all awkward in a crowded public place, but what the hey. The friend on the receiving end will get a gift message accompanied by a system code that needs to be entered at a PepsiCo Social Vending system to redeem the free beverage. "Our vision is to use innovative technology to empower consumers and create new ways for them to engage with our brands, their social networks and each other at the point of purchase," Mikel Durham, Chief Innovation Officer at PepsiCo Foodservice, said in a statement. "Social Vending extends our consumers' social networks beyond the confines of their own devices and transforms a static, transaction-oriented experience into something fun and exciting they'll want to return to, again and again." The truly generous and philanthropic soda drinker will also be able to buy a drink for a complete stranger through another Social Vending system, perhaps a person in a city that is suffering through a natural disaster or weather crisis. PepsiCo calls this "Random Acts of Refreshment," a real-life version of Coke's fictional "Happiness Machine" that spouts free drinks, flowers, and pizza. With the term social media being used, the obvious question is how Facebook and Twitter are involved in the Social Vending System. The answer, for now, is that the two popular social networking sites are not lined to the project. PepsiCo representatives have hinted at their future inclusion, but no date has been given for that to happen. PepsiCo will debut a prototype of the Social Vending System at the National Automatic Merchandising Association's One Show in Chicago this week and as anyone in the know knows, the NAMAOS is, was and always will be a freaking party, so make your travel plans now, without further delay……….
- Prepare for utterly shocking news: The NCAA has decreed from its lofty, ivory tower of hypocrisy that it will not consider any new bowl applicants for a period of up to three years. Apparently, 35 bowl games resulting in the real possibility that a sub-.500 team could actually sneak its way into a postseason contest was the tipping point, leading to NCAA president Mark Emmert’s announcement Thursday. Also, the NCAA wouldn’t be a good and true bureaucracy if it didn’t form some sort of committee for the occasion and sure enough, Emmert also announced that a task force is being assembled to examine the process by which the NCAA licenses bowls. "Going forward, I want to make sure that the bowl licensing process is robust enough and thorough enough that we have great confidence that we know how a bowl is being governed," Emmert said. His words were obviously directed at the troubled Fiesta Bowl, which is currently under investigation for illegal campaign contributions and other financial misconduct. The NCAA's bowl licensing committee met with Fiesta Bowl officials Thursday morning New Orleans, but will not render its decision until a special BCS task force has concluded its discussion of the Fiesta Bowl's admitted unethical conduct. Nebraska chancellor Harvey Perlman and a yet-to-be-determined second individual will lead the new bowl licensing task force, which will include external members and evaluate aspects of bowl review, including possible expansive independent auditing. The real irony in this announcement is the focus seems to be on unethical actions by bowl officials and shady operating procedures, but the bigger problem is the NCAA green-lighting nearly every application for a new bowl game to the point that nearly 60 percent of all Division I teams earn a bowl berth, including teams with 6-6 records who lose their bowl game and end the season below the .500 mark despite, ya know, being considered good enough to play in a bowl game. But go ahead and worry about eliminating conflicts of interest from members of committees, such as the bowl licensing committee, and them taking gifts such as rounds of golf, meals or lodging from corrupt operations like the Fiesta Bowl. The good ol’ NCAA, missing most or all of the point once again………..
- This is it, America! The Chinese own a disheartening chunk of the United States’ national debt and may be plotting our eventual demise, but there is a chink in the Chinese armor and it could be just what the U.S. needs to shift the power dynamic in this relationship. After conducting its first national census in a decade, the Chinese government has unearthed a potentially huge problem: an aging populace that could derail China's booming economic growth and place a heavy burden on young Chinese. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the percentage of over-60 Chinese has risen by nearly three percentage points to 13.3 percent of the total population, or 178 million people. Conversely, there was a sharp drop in the number of young Chinese over the past decade, with under-14s making up just 16.6 percent of the population, down from 22.9 percent at the last count. Compounding the problem, the total population of China has risen over the decade by 73.9 million to a whopping 1.37 billion people. Other nations, such as Britain, have similar issues, but on a much smaller scale and with more fully developed economies. Throw China’s existing one-child policy into the mix and you have a lot of children feeling increasingly burdened by the responsibility of each caring for an "upside-down pyramid" of two parents and four grandparents. “I have been thinking about China's ageing problems for some years," said Zheng Aiwen, a fashion design student in Shanghai. "As soon as I saw the census results, I thought I have to hurry up and get married and have children, two if possible. I am quite worried about the economic pressure of caring for my parents and also about not being supported myself in my old age.” Zheng is not alone in her thinking and the census results will undoubtedly spur intense debate about easing the one-child policy. Officials have countered that the policy, which actually allows many in the countryside and some in the cities to have two children, has prevented the Chinese population from swelling by more than 400 million people over the last three decades. Lead communist Hu Jintao, technically known as the country’s president, has vowed that the country would adhere to strict family planning and a "low birth rate.” One factor helping that cause is the rising cost of living, which has made it all but impossible for most families to afford more than one child anyway. The dilemma is a large one for the Chinese, but for a country under its thumb due to immense national debts, that dilemma could be just the opportunity needed to shift paradigms, change fates and reverse fortunes. Act now, America, this is your chance……….
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Whining NBA losers, losers playing with children's toys and where America's most toxic air resides
- Legitimate complaints or the bitter whining of a loser who can't accept being defeated by a superior opponent? Indiana Pacers forward Danny Granger sounded more like the latter than the former in the aftermath of a 116-89 loss to the Chicago Bulls Tuesday night that eliminated the Pacers from the playoffs. The Bulls won the series 4-1 with a largely unimpressive performance, but as they throttled the Pacers in Game 5, not only were stars Derrick Rose and Luol Deng at their best, so was divisive center Joakim Noah, a man known as much for getting under opponents’ skin as much as he is for his defense and rebounding. Noah irritates nearly every opponent he plays against and he definitely hooked Pacers forward Josh McRoberts who was ejected after a skirmish with Noah on Tuesday. McRoberts seemed to catch an elbow to the neck when he and Noah tangled near the lane, but when McRoberts tried to return fire, he was assessed a flagrant 2 foul and ejected. McRoberts didn’t have a problem with the exchange and wasn’t outwardly upset with Noah after the game. "I'm not mad about it," McRoberts said. "He got a good hit on me. They caught me trying to hit him back. "It's part of the game. I'm not going to say it's dirty.” Granger was not nearly as diplomatic and said Noah played "cowardly" at times Tuesday, cheap-shotting his Indiana teammates. "He pulled a cowardly move," Granger said. "He cheap-shotted a couple of my teammates, and one gets thrown out. The refs never catch what he did ... it's cowardly. And I'm going to say something about it. I wanted to say something about it all the way to the game was over. I just don't think the game should be played that way. You can play hard and fight and battle, but when you start cheap-shotting people it gets out of hand." Normally, a player making those comments would be best to go directly to the guy they have a problem with and resolve matters. Granger claimed he was going to talk to Noah after the game, but Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau intervened. "It's just heat of the battle stuff," Thibodeau said. Noah, who has heard this sort of criticism literally dozens of times during his career, laughed off Granger’s comments. "I played dirty? OK. I'm just trying to win basketball games, man," Noah said. "It's the name of the game. "I'm just out there trying to do what I gotta do. Like I said, I give a lot of credit to their team. They play hard as hell. They were competitive. I don't have anything bad to say about them. Everybody saw what happened out there. Now you want to call me a dirty player? I don't think I've ever been a dirty player. It is what it is. It's OK." Ironically, Pacers center Jeff Foster picked up two flagrant fouls early in the series and was himself accused of dirty play by several Bulls. Yet there’s Granger, exercising classic selective memory in deciding who is in fact dirty and who’s not…………
- Calling someone you have never met a loser is typically a bad idea. Unless you truly know a person, declaring them to be a loser is casting mighty severe condemnation on them without having all of the facts. Having said all of that, George Vlosich III is a loser and it’s possible to say that without ever meeting him. You may not know Vlosich, but all you need to know about him is this: He is still not only playing with, but devoting insane amounts of time to a toy most of us stopped using right around the age of 10. See, Vlosich is perhaps the world's best-known Etch-A-Sketch artist. And yes, there are Etch-A-Sketch artists. This knob has appeared on dozens of shows, including Oprah and Jimmy Kimmel Live and has met a long list of celebrities such as Cal Ripken Jr., Garth Brooks, LeBron James, Michael Jordan and Will Smith, all because of his proficiency with that small plastic rectangle and those little granules of sand that make the lines on an Etch-A-Sketch. What possesses a person to make likenesses of famous athletes, entertainers and political figures - other than a lack of friends, non-loser hobbies or an IQ above 55 - may be a mystery, but there was no mystery for Vlosich when it came to who he should sketch for his next “work of art.” With the über-covered wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton coming up this weekend, Vlosich decided that much like Dunkin’ Donuts, Baskin Robbins and the hoards of other companies and individuals around the world with no ties to the wedding or England whatsoever, he would try to gravy train some publicity and coverage from the event. In other words, he decided to pay tribute to Prince William and Kate Middleton with a special Etch-A-Sketch. Once the sketch was done, he removed the sand from the back of the toy to preserve the image. Making matters worse, media outlets are treating him like he’s something other than the ginormous loser he is. Publications and media outlets in London have contacted him for interviews and this kook is actually dreaming of a day when he will have the opportunity to present his sketch to Prince William and Middleton. Why? So they can stand there awkwardly, wondering what to say to a man with so little of a life that he spends hours doodling in sand on a children’s toy? Sounds like a barrel of fun to me……….
- Remember that talk we’ve been having in this very space for months now about Hollywood giving a giant middle finger to originality and creativity when it comes to ideas for new movies? The quest to remake or push through a sequel for every film that has already been made has reached ridiculous proportions and in what might be the perfect storm of film recycle-o-mania, the man behind an absolutely ideal movie to coax an unnecessary sequel from is free and clear of obligations that have taken him away from the industry for seven years or so. That man is Arnold Schwarzenegger, who spent the past seven years (poorly) running the state of California as its governor. Schwarzenegger, who earned and embraced the nickname “The Governator” during his time in office, hinted even before leaving office that he was planning a return to acting. He informed his representatives to begin screening potential scripts and those scripts have come rushing in, but of course the one movie that is a guarantee is yet another sequel to the franchise that has come to define Schwarzenegger’s career, The Terminator. He first played the role in 1984 and it gave him the signature catchphrase that has come to define his career along with being recited by millions of people in millions of ridiculous situations over the past two-plus decades. No script exists for a new Terminator film, but Justin Lin, who is best known for his work on The Fast and the Furious franchise, has been lined up to direct. Schwarzenegger himself suggested during an interview last month that he would be open to the project. "I can step very comfortably into the entertainment world and do an action movie with the same violence that I've always done," he said. Even though a script has not been written, a bidding war is expected among major studios when the project moves closer to filming. Why is anyone excited for a ridiculous remake of a 27-year-old action film starring a 63 year-old dude who hasn’t acted in nearly a decade? Because this is Hollywood and originality, creativity and unique thought are not required to get a movie made…………
- Israel vs. passing flotilla, Part 2. Last year, a flotilla attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea was stopped by Israel and Israeli commandos clashed with activists on one of the vessels. Nine Turkish activists were killed and seven Israeli commandos were wounded in the incident and relations between the two nations have been even more strained than usual ever since. Turkish officials maintained that the flotilla was merely aid destined for the Gaza Strip, but Israeli officials claimed it was a stash of weapons intended for Hamas. Nearly a year has passed since the incident and Turkey has decided it’s time to send another flotilla along the same route in the hopes of provoking another international incident. On Tuesday, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu warned Israel not to attempt to stop the upcoming supply flotilla and said the Israelis should not repeat “the same mistake” they made last May. That message was either lost in translation or Israel simply doesn’t give a f*ck, because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday he has instructed his security forces to continue to enforce a naval blockade on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. The flotilla, which is expected to set sail from Turkey as early as May, would be covered by that blockade and although Netanyahu explained that he is also pursuing diplomatic efforts to prevent the flotilla from setting, the odds of stopping the voyage are low. Once again, the Israelis are concerned that the ships could deliver weapons to militants. So far, the flotilla has been delayed as organizers weigh the value of postponing it until after Turkish elections in mid-June. The Turkish government confirmed it received a request from Israel to stop the flotilla, but the effort is not affiliated with the government in any way and as such, they cannot stop it. Add all of the pieces of this equation together and very clearly, it’s a combustible situation that will inevitably explode and end badly for all involved…………
- The results have been tabulated, the numbers have been crunched and now, it’s time to hand out the honor of the city with the dirtiest, filthiest and unhealthiest air in all of the United States. It was an especially hard-fought battle this year, but one city clearly stood above the rest when it comes to providing potentially toxic and harmful air for its citizens to inhale: freaking Bakersfield, Calif. Bakersfield, step up and claim your prize. You have officially ripped the "dirtiest U.S. air" title from Los Angeles, the American Lung Association (ALA) found in its annual ranking of U.S. areas with the most and least air pollution. The study ranks cities in three categories: most bouts of short-term particle pollution, most year-round particle pollution and ozone pollution. To win the title for dirtiest air, Bakersfield had to beat out rugged competition, something the city was able to do by placing first on both the short- and long-term particle pollution lists. Give Los Angeles credit because Angelinos did enough to keep their city as the top dog for ruining their slice of the ozone layer. On the positive side Honolulu and Santa Fe, N.M., were the only two U.S. cities to rank among the top 10 cleanest cities on all three lists. Also, all cities ranked as most polluted by ozone improved their rankings from last year, as did all but two of the 25 cities with the worst all-year particle pollution. With two of its cities snagging all of the top spots on the lists, it’s not surprising that the ALA report notes that an estimated 9,200 Californians die annually from breathing particle pollution. "Deaths can occur on the very day that particle levels are high, or within one to two months afterward," the report states. "These are deaths that would not have occurred if the air were cleaner." If Californians actually had an interest in putting down the Botox needle, foregoing another tummy tuck and doing something to fix their crappy air quality, they too could enjoy the benefits of the nation’s improved air quality, which the ALA says has added five months to U.S. life expectancy over the past three decades. Still, there is reason for concern, says Normal H. Edelman, MD, the ALA's chief medical officer. "Vast portions of our population are at risk of bad health or even death from unhealthy air," Edelman said at a news conference. "Over half of Americans continue to live in areas with bad air pollution -- in air dirty enough to shorten their lives." Much of that damage is done by particle pollution, which damages the lungs of healthy people, an effect that may be worse in the growing lungs of children, the fragile lungs of the elderly, and the already weakened lungs of people with asthma and COPD. Breathing toxic air also causes heart damage and to combat the problem, the ALA strongly supports toughening the Clean Air Act. But in the event our government does what it does best - nothing - the organization has suggestions for how people can protect themselves against dirty air; paying attention to forecasts for high-pollution days and taking precautions; avoiding exercise near high-traffic areas, outdoor exercise when pollution levels are high and areas allowing indoor smoking and reducing the use of fireplaces and wood-burning stoves. None are complicated to execute, but America doesn’t always have the firmest grasp on what should be simple tasks………
- Calling someone you have never met a loser is typically a bad idea. Unless you truly know a person, declaring them to be a loser is casting mighty severe condemnation on them without having all of the facts. Having said all of that, George Vlosich III is a loser and it’s possible to say that without ever meeting him. You may not know Vlosich, but all you need to know about him is this: He is still not only playing with, but devoting insane amounts of time to a toy most of us stopped using right around the age of 10. See, Vlosich is perhaps the world's best-known Etch-A-Sketch artist. And yes, there are Etch-A-Sketch artists. This knob has appeared on dozens of shows, including Oprah and Jimmy Kimmel Live and has met a long list of celebrities such as Cal Ripken Jr., Garth Brooks, LeBron James, Michael Jordan and Will Smith, all because of his proficiency with that small plastic rectangle and those little granules of sand that make the lines on an Etch-A-Sketch. What possesses a person to make likenesses of famous athletes, entertainers and political figures - other than a lack of friends, non-loser hobbies or an IQ above 55 - may be a mystery, but there was no mystery for Vlosich when it came to who he should sketch for his next “work of art.” With the über-covered wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton coming up this weekend, Vlosich decided that much like Dunkin’ Donuts, Baskin Robbins and the hoards of other companies and individuals around the world with no ties to the wedding or England whatsoever, he would try to gravy train some publicity and coverage from the event. In other words, he decided to pay tribute to Prince William and Kate Middleton with a special Etch-A-Sketch. Once the sketch was done, he removed the sand from the back of the toy to preserve the image. Making matters worse, media outlets are treating him like he’s something other than the ginormous loser he is. Publications and media outlets in London have contacted him for interviews and this kook is actually dreaming of a day when he will have the opportunity to present his sketch to Prince William and Middleton. Why? So they can stand there awkwardly, wondering what to say to a man with so little of a life that he spends hours doodling in sand on a children’s toy? Sounds like a barrel of fun to me……….
- Remember that talk we’ve been having in this very space for months now about Hollywood giving a giant middle finger to originality and creativity when it comes to ideas for new movies? The quest to remake or push through a sequel for every film that has already been made has reached ridiculous proportions and in what might be the perfect storm of film recycle-o-mania, the man behind an absolutely ideal movie to coax an unnecessary sequel from is free and clear of obligations that have taken him away from the industry for seven years or so. That man is Arnold Schwarzenegger, who spent the past seven years (poorly) running the state of California as its governor. Schwarzenegger, who earned and embraced the nickname “The Governator” during his time in office, hinted even before leaving office that he was planning a return to acting. He informed his representatives to begin screening potential scripts and those scripts have come rushing in, but of course the one movie that is a guarantee is yet another sequel to the franchise that has come to define Schwarzenegger’s career, The Terminator. He first played the role in 1984 and it gave him the signature catchphrase that has come to define his career along with being recited by millions of people in millions of ridiculous situations over the past two-plus decades. No script exists for a new Terminator film, but Justin Lin, who is best known for his work on The Fast and the Furious franchise, has been lined up to direct. Schwarzenegger himself suggested during an interview last month that he would be open to the project. "I can step very comfortably into the entertainment world and do an action movie with the same violence that I've always done," he said. Even though a script has not been written, a bidding war is expected among major studios when the project moves closer to filming. Why is anyone excited for a ridiculous remake of a 27-year-old action film starring a 63 year-old dude who hasn’t acted in nearly a decade? Because this is Hollywood and originality, creativity and unique thought are not required to get a movie made…………
- Israel vs. passing flotilla, Part 2. Last year, a flotilla attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea was stopped by Israel and Israeli commandos clashed with activists on one of the vessels. Nine Turkish activists were killed and seven Israeli commandos were wounded in the incident and relations between the two nations have been even more strained than usual ever since. Turkish officials maintained that the flotilla was merely aid destined for the Gaza Strip, but Israeli officials claimed it was a stash of weapons intended for Hamas. Nearly a year has passed since the incident and Turkey has decided it’s time to send another flotilla along the same route in the hopes of provoking another international incident. On Tuesday, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu warned Israel not to attempt to stop the upcoming supply flotilla and said the Israelis should not repeat “the same mistake” they made last May. That message was either lost in translation or Israel simply doesn’t give a f*ck, because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday he has instructed his security forces to continue to enforce a naval blockade on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. The flotilla, which is expected to set sail from Turkey as early as May, would be covered by that blockade and although Netanyahu explained that he is also pursuing diplomatic efforts to prevent the flotilla from setting, the odds of stopping the voyage are low. Once again, the Israelis are concerned that the ships could deliver weapons to militants. So far, the flotilla has been delayed as organizers weigh the value of postponing it until after Turkish elections in mid-June. The Turkish government confirmed it received a request from Israel to stop the flotilla, but the effort is not affiliated with the government in any way and as such, they cannot stop it. Add all of the pieces of this equation together and very clearly, it’s a combustible situation that will inevitably explode and end badly for all involved…………
- The results have been tabulated, the numbers have been crunched and now, it’s time to hand out the honor of the city with the dirtiest, filthiest and unhealthiest air in all of the United States. It was an especially hard-fought battle this year, but one city clearly stood above the rest when it comes to providing potentially toxic and harmful air for its citizens to inhale: freaking Bakersfield, Calif. Bakersfield, step up and claim your prize. You have officially ripped the "dirtiest U.S. air" title from Los Angeles, the American Lung Association (ALA) found in its annual ranking of U.S. areas with the most and least air pollution. The study ranks cities in three categories: most bouts of short-term particle pollution, most year-round particle pollution and ozone pollution. To win the title for dirtiest air, Bakersfield had to beat out rugged competition, something the city was able to do by placing first on both the short- and long-term particle pollution lists. Give Los Angeles credit because Angelinos did enough to keep their city as the top dog for ruining their slice of the ozone layer. On the positive side Honolulu and Santa Fe, N.M., were the only two U.S. cities to rank among the top 10 cleanest cities on all three lists. Also, all cities ranked as most polluted by ozone improved their rankings from last year, as did all but two of the 25 cities with the worst all-year particle pollution. With two of its cities snagging all of the top spots on the lists, it’s not surprising that the ALA report notes that an estimated 9,200 Californians die annually from breathing particle pollution. "Deaths can occur on the very day that particle levels are high, or within one to two months afterward," the report states. "These are deaths that would not have occurred if the air were cleaner." If Californians actually had an interest in putting down the Botox needle, foregoing another tummy tuck and doing something to fix their crappy air quality, they too could enjoy the benefits of the nation’s improved air quality, which the ALA says has added five months to U.S. life expectancy over the past three decades. Still, there is reason for concern, says Normal H. Edelman, MD, the ALA's chief medical officer. "Vast portions of our population are at risk of bad health or even death from unhealthy air," Edelman said at a news conference. "Over half of Americans continue to live in areas with bad air pollution -- in air dirty enough to shorten their lives." Much of that damage is done by particle pollution, which damages the lungs of healthy people, an effect that may be worse in the growing lungs of children, the fragile lungs of the elderly, and the already weakened lungs of people with asthma and COPD. Breathing toxic air also causes heart damage and to combat the problem, the ALA strongly supports toughening the Clean Air Act. But in the event our government does what it does best - nothing - the organization has suggestions for how people can protect themselves against dirty air; paying attention to forecasts for high-pollution days and taking precautions; avoiding exercise near high-traffic areas, outdoor exercise when pollution levels are high and areas allowing indoor smoking and reducing the use of fireplaces and wood-burning stoves. None are complicated to execute, but America doesn’t always have the firmest grasp on what should be simple tasks………
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Sony's new tablets, pervs at the library and shoe-throwing activism
- Because there weren’t already enough pervs and degenerates at your local library, the New York Public Libraries are actively defending the right of those pervs and degenerates to roll up on the library and do….well, what pervs and degenerates do: watch porn. Nearly 1.7 million people go online to access porn every minute of the day and the vast majority of them do so at home (or at work shortly before being fired for watching porn at work). Most people who patronize a public library expect to be able to go in, get a book, CD or movie and leave without having to encounter one of these losers streaming a XXX-rated movie from some adult site. That’s the case in most states around the country, but not in New York City. Thanks to a policy, at all city libraries, that gives adults uncensored access to any Internet porn, lonely and horny people can check out some hot lesbian action while kids or families walk by or use the computer next to them for non-perv purposes like research papers or updating their Facebook status for the tenth time that day. The rule governing porn access is based on the First Amendment, according to library officials. "The library provides access to anything that's protected by the First Amendment rights," said Brooklyn Library spokesperson, Richard Reyes-Gavilan. Some parents have lodged complaints over having their children exposed to pornography on other patrons’ computer screens, but library policy basically demands that librarians tell them to suck it up and deal with it. Library officials insist it is not within their jurisdiction to ban porn. "It's not the libraries' job to teach taste," Reyes-Gavilan explained. By the letter of the law, he (and the library) are correct. The law requires libraries nationwide to block anyone under 17 years of age from watching XXX flicks, but that is as far as the law goes. Many library systems’ security measures can be adjusted on individual computers by any perv wanting to access some NSFW content. The lesson, as always, is that anyone using a library computer should be assumed to be up to something shady, sketchy or perverted……….
- It had been too long. For months and months, not one bold citizen in a third world country had stepped up and hurled a piece of footwear at an important political or cultural figure. The brave Iraqi who chucked his shoe at former President W. during a speech was left standing alone as the only man bold enough to make this defiant gesture until…….like a bolt of lightning reaching valiantly across a dark night sky, illuminating the world when it was needed most, Kapil Thakur appeared. If you don’t know Thakur’s name already, don’t worry. You will soon learn that name and learn it well after Thakur, a lawyer from the Indian city of Gwailor, hurled a sandal at the former Commonwealth Games Organizing Committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi at the Patiala House Courts complex Tuesday afternoon. Thakur may not have been seeking to make a bold political statement with his shoe throwing, but he was certainly angry. Why? Because he had been barred from practicing law several months ago after he allegedly stabbed a sub-divisional magistrate claiming that he was corrupt. As a quick aside, stabbing someone who accuses you of corruption is always a solid move because while it may prove you are a murderous individual with little self-control, stabbing a person to death is definitely not a corrupt move. The lone dark spot on Thakur’s act of bravery was that his shoe throw, like the one involving W., went wide of the mark and Thakur was immediately subdued by police. He was booked under the Delhi Police Act, but later released. Throughout the incident, a defiant Kalmadi smiled and continued to interact with reporters. He didn’t let on his anger over the incident happening despite tight security, but the real rage should come from the fact that it took so long for another intrepid shoe thrower to step up and inspire the world…………
- What has actor/comedian Paul Reiser been doing the past few years and in the decade-plus since his lone successful foray into television, Mad About You, went off the air? Clearly, he hasn’t been honing his acting skills because his new show the Paul Reiser Show, was canceled by NBC last week after just two episodes, which both rated extremely poorly. Not that one man can carry an otherwise awful show, but Reiser’s uninspiring performance along with the overall poor quality of the show itself add up to terrible ratings that surprised no one - probably not even the suits at NBC, if they were honest. But back to the question of what Reiser has been doing the past few years…….if forced to hazard a guess, stockpiling bitterness and delusions of grandeur would have to be at the top of the list after his performance Monday on the The Tonight Show With Jay Leno. An interview originally targeted toward promoting one of the network’s new series instead ended up as a postmortem for one of the biggest flops of this or any other TV season and Reiser made no effort to conceal his digust with the network over his show’s cancellation. "NBC, to my knowledge, they don't traditionally make bad decisions. Have you heard that? I don't know what your experience is," Reiser said to Leno sarcastically, alluding to Leno’s own late-night war with Conan O'Brien. "It turns out they said we enjoy missing you more than actually having you. But listen, I don't take it personally. Listen, when you're the last place network, you don't want to jeopardize that. You've found your niche. Stay there. So I get it." Ouch, someone’s a bit thorny after his show bombed out and received some of the lowest ratings of any network series this season. While learning that people hate your show and don’t want to watch it hurts, it’s difficult to see how Reiser (or anyone else in his position) could attack the network for pulling the plug on said show. No matter how great of an actor you believe yourself to be, if the results aren’t there, then they aren’t there. New shoes notoriously have their best ratings in their pilot episode and ratings drop off in subsequent weeks as the curiosity factor wears off. The good, sustainable shows hold on to a healthy chunk of their audience, while the bad shows……well, their lead actors end up ranting in late-night talk show interviews about how the network screwed them over…………
- BlackBerry has entered the tablet market with its Playbook and every other tech company with a pulse has offered up their own take on the tablet, so it was high time for Sony to join the fray and the tech titan did so Tuesday with not one, but two tablets running Google's Android Honeycomb OS. While the tablets don’t have an official name (because introducing two tablets without actual names doesn’t at all suggest their release was rushed), Sony said it had codenamed the two devices S1 and S2, and that the gadgets would make up the "Sony Tablet" line of products. The two decives are significantly different from one another, with the S1 as a wedge of a tablet, with a tapering back and a 9.4-inch touch screen out front. In a release, Sony said the S1's "off-center of gravity design realizes stability and ease of grip." The device sports front and rear cameras for shooting video and photos. Conversely, the S2 is a clam-shell device made up of two 5.5-inch touch screens with a hinge running through the middle of the device that allows it to close up, screen to screen. Users can use the two screens together as one large screen to browse websites or apps or as separate entities, i.e. utilizing the bottom half as a keyboard and the top half as the actual display for browsing. The one significant commonality for the tablets is Google's Android Honeycomb software, using Android apps and featuring Internet connectivity using both Wi-Fi and 3G or 4G cellular networks. Additionally, both devices will be able to tap into Sony's cloud-based services: Qriocity offering music and video, the PlayStation Network offering downloadable video games and e-books from the Sony Reader Store. To emphasized their versatility, the Sony Tablet products will also work with some Sony TVs and home speaker systems, allowing users to push video or music from the tablets to their home entertainment systems via infrared connections. The S1 and S2 were announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January, but Sony did not provide any visuals or details about them. They are set to arrive in stores this fall, but no price points have been announced and overall, their existence remains fairly cryptic and shadowy. But maybe intrigue and suspense are the way to go in a tablet market where a company needs every advantage it can get to set its offerings apart from the rest of the field………..
- He isn't the first and he won't be the last, but former NHL enforcer Donald Brashear is nonetheless looking to make his mark as a former professional athlete transitioning to the world of mixed martial arts. Brashear, who played in the NHL for the Montreal Canadiens, Vancouver Canucks, Philadelphia Flyers, Washington Capitals and New York Rangers in a career spanning 18 seasons, has signed a deal with Ringside MMA to step inside the octagon. He still must pass a medical exam and get a license to fight from Quebec authorities and if he does, he is scheduled to fight on the Ringside 11 card June 4 at the Quebec Coliseum. He hasn’t given up on hockey entirely, playing in the semipro Ligue Nord-Americaine de Hockey, but will attempt to fulfill his MMA dreams at the same time. Former NFL running back Herschel Walker has previously made the crossover to MMA and enjoyed limited success, although he himself has admitted that his chances to rise through the ranks are limited because he didn’t enter the sport until he was nearly 50 years old. Brashear has more than a decade on Walker, but taking up MMA is difficult at any age because of the many disciplines involved in mastering it. Even for a 6-foot-3, 237-pound bruiser with a reputation from brawling at every chance during his hockey career, succeeding in the world of triangle chokes, Brazilian jujitsu and flying elbows inside the octagon will be a huge departure from the norm. During his NHL career, Brashear collected 2,634 penalty minutes in 1,025 NHL games from 1993-2010. He won't have to worry about being sent to the penalty box during his bout(s), but spending two minutes in the box might be preferable to having a 250-pound dude cave in his face or render him unconscious with a rear naked choke or taking his head off with a spinning martial arts kick. Seeing the experiment end in disaster wouldn’t be a surprise, but it should be entertaining no matter what the end result…………
- It had been too long. For months and months, not one bold citizen in a third world country had stepped up and hurled a piece of footwear at an important political or cultural figure. The brave Iraqi who chucked his shoe at former President W. during a speech was left standing alone as the only man bold enough to make this defiant gesture until…….like a bolt of lightning reaching valiantly across a dark night sky, illuminating the world when it was needed most, Kapil Thakur appeared. If you don’t know Thakur’s name already, don’t worry. You will soon learn that name and learn it well after Thakur, a lawyer from the Indian city of Gwailor, hurled a sandal at the former Commonwealth Games Organizing Committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi at the Patiala House Courts complex Tuesday afternoon. Thakur may not have been seeking to make a bold political statement with his shoe throwing, but he was certainly angry. Why? Because he had been barred from practicing law several months ago after he allegedly stabbed a sub-divisional magistrate claiming that he was corrupt. As a quick aside, stabbing someone who accuses you of corruption is always a solid move because while it may prove you are a murderous individual with little self-control, stabbing a person to death is definitely not a corrupt move. The lone dark spot on Thakur’s act of bravery was that his shoe throw, like the one involving W., went wide of the mark and Thakur was immediately subdued by police. He was booked under the Delhi Police Act, but later released. Throughout the incident, a defiant Kalmadi smiled and continued to interact with reporters. He didn’t let on his anger over the incident happening despite tight security, but the real rage should come from the fact that it took so long for another intrepid shoe thrower to step up and inspire the world…………
- What has actor/comedian Paul Reiser been doing the past few years and in the decade-plus since his lone successful foray into television, Mad About You, went off the air? Clearly, he hasn’t been honing his acting skills because his new show the Paul Reiser Show, was canceled by NBC last week after just two episodes, which both rated extremely poorly. Not that one man can carry an otherwise awful show, but Reiser’s uninspiring performance along with the overall poor quality of the show itself add up to terrible ratings that surprised no one - probably not even the suits at NBC, if they were honest. But back to the question of what Reiser has been doing the past few years…….if forced to hazard a guess, stockpiling bitterness and delusions of grandeur would have to be at the top of the list after his performance Monday on the The Tonight Show With Jay Leno. An interview originally targeted toward promoting one of the network’s new series instead ended up as a postmortem for one of the biggest flops of this or any other TV season and Reiser made no effort to conceal his digust with the network over his show’s cancellation. "NBC, to my knowledge, they don't traditionally make bad decisions. Have you heard that? I don't know what your experience is," Reiser said to Leno sarcastically, alluding to Leno’s own late-night war with Conan O'Brien. "It turns out they said we enjoy missing you more than actually having you. But listen, I don't take it personally. Listen, when you're the last place network, you don't want to jeopardize that. You've found your niche. Stay there. So I get it." Ouch, someone’s a bit thorny after his show bombed out and received some of the lowest ratings of any network series this season. While learning that people hate your show and don’t want to watch it hurts, it’s difficult to see how Reiser (or anyone else in his position) could attack the network for pulling the plug on said show. No matter how great of an actor you believe yourself to be, if the results aren’t there, then they aren’t there. New shoes notoriously have their best ratings in their pilot episode and ratings drop off in subsequent weeks as the curiosity factor wears off. The good, sustainable shows hold on to a healthy chunk of their audience, while the bad shows……well, their lead actors end up ranting in late-night talk show interviews about how the network screwed them over…………
- BlackBerry has entered the tablet market with its Playbook and every other tech company with a pulse has offered up their own take on the tablet, so it was high time for Sony to join the fray and the tech titan did so Tuesday with not one, but two tablets running Google's Android Honeycomb OS. While the tablets don’t have an official name (because introducing two tablets without actual names doesn’t at all suggest their release was rushed), Sony said it had codenamed the two devices S1 and S2, and that the gadgets would make up the "Sony Tablet" line of products. The two decives are significantly different from one another, with the S1 as a wedge of a tablet, with a tapering back and a 9.4-inch touch screen out front. In a release, Sony said the S1's "off-center of gravity design realizes stability and ease of grip." The device sports front and rear cameras for shooting video and photos. Conversely, the S2 is a clam-shell device made up of two 5.5-inch touch screens with a hinge running through the middle of the device that allows it to close up, screen to screen. Users can use the two screens together as one large screen to browse websites or apps or as separate entities, i.e. utilizing the bottom half as a keyboard and the top half as the actual display for browsing. The one significant commonality for the tablets is Google's Android Honeycomb software, using Android apps and featuring Internet connectivity using both Wi-Fi and 3G or 4G cellular networks. Additionally, both devices will be able to tap into Sony's cloud-based services: Qriocity offering music and video, the PlayStation Network offering downloadable video games and e-books from the Sony Reader Store. To emphasized their versatility, the Sony Tablet products will also work with some Sony TVs and home speaker systems, allowing users to push video or music from the tablets to their home entertainment systems via infrared connections. The S1 and S2 were announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January, but Sony did not provide any visuals or details about them. They are set to arrive in stores this fall, but no price points have been announced and overall, their existence remains fairly cryptic and shadowy. But maybe intrigue and suspense are the way to go in a tablet market where a company needs every advantage it can get to set its offerings apart from the rest of the field………..
- He isn't the first and he won't be the last, but former NHL enforcer Donald Brashear is nonetheless looking to make his mark as a former professional athlete transitioning to the world of mixed martial arts. Brashear, who played in the NHL for the Montreal Canadiens, Vancouver Canucks, Philadelphia Flyers, Washington Capitals and New York Rangers in a career spanning 18 seasons, has signed a deal with Ringside MMA to step inside the octagon. He still must pass a medical exam and get a license to fight from Quebec authorities and if he does, he is scheduled to fight on the Ringside 11 card June 4 at the Quebec Coliseum. He hasn’t given up on hockey entirely, playing in the semipro Ligue Nord-Americaine de Hockey, but will attempt to fulfill his MMA dreams at the same time. Former NFL running back Herschel Walker has previously made the crossover to MMA and enjoyed limited success, although he himself has admitted that his chances to rise through the ranks are limited because he didn’t enter the sport until he was nearly 50 years old. Brashear has more than a decade on Walker, but taking up MMA is difficult at any age because of the many disciplines involved in mastering it. Even for a 6-foot-3, 237-pound bruiser with a reputation from brawling at every chance during his hockey career, succeeding in the world of triangle chokes, Brazilian jujitsu and flying elbows inside the octagon will be a huge departure from the norm. During his NHL career, Brashear collected 2,634 penalty minutes in 1,025 NHL games from 1993-2010. He won't have to worry about being sent to the penalty box during his bout(s), but spending two minutes in the box might be preferable to having a 250-pound dude cave in his face or render him unconscious with a rear naked choke or taking his head off with a spinning martial arts kick. Seeing the experiment end in disaster wouldn’t be a surprise, but it should be entertaining no matter what the end result…………
Monday, April 25, 2011
Botox dangers, repressing progress and a new "Prison Break"
- Could Marshfield, Mass. finally be getting with the times and joining the rest of us in the 21st century…..or at least 1995? If next week’s town meeting turns out the right way, then yes, Marshfield could just get an added touch of modernity it has been sorely lacking. See, video games in public places have been banned in Marshfield since 1982, and for people who want to play video games in restaurants in the town, there was no relief. Local restaurant owners are among those fighting to lift the ban, arguing that it would benefit business along with allowing in harmless, fun and benign slices of entertainment fun. “People wanna come in, it’s another form of entertainment,” said Stephen Drosopoulos, who owns Venus II Restaurant. “(They) wanna come in, have a couple drinks, play some video games in the bar.” When the games were initially banned, the case was appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. One might imagine that in the three decades since, the ass-backwards thinkers who are still living in a Footloose-era world in which any modern technology or anything not safe in Leave It To Beaver times is bad, fodder for eternal damnation and the devil’s play thing would have backed off their stance, learned to accept the modern world and ceased opposition of video games. Umm…..wrong. There are still supporters of the ban and those idiots say the question before their community is about much more than the games themselves; to them it’s about the future and character of the seacoast community. “It would definitely change the type of entertainment we offer,” said Faith Jean, who supports the video game ban. “We’re a coastal town. Now are we an amusement coastal town or are we fishing and swimming and sailing?” Oh no! Not an amusement town! Hey tool…….video games aren’t going to ruin your town. People aren’t going to come to Marshfield, play video games all day long and never set food on the beach to swim, fish or sail. More than likely, they’ll send their kids to play the games so the kids will stop bothering them as they finish their meal. Oh, and Marshfield allows Keno in bars, restaurants and some stores despite the ban, so not allowing video games does sound extremely hypocritical………..
- Oh, so close. The world seemed to be on the verge of getting rid of one more mediocre, forgettable, mildly good-looking actor and then the truth had to jump up and bite us all in the behind. Reports surfaced over the weekend that actor Ryan Phillippe wanted to retire. Cinema buffs will recall his memorable roles in…..umm….uh……never mind. Honestly, Phillippe never had any great or memorable roles and is best known for being married to Reese Witherspoon for a few years. Beyond that, he’s as forgettable and easily replaceable an actor as Hollywood has seen in years. The less of these quasi-talented hacks hanging around the industry, the better. “I’m going to spend a third of my year in New York… I think I’m going to end my acting career,” he is quoted as saying. “I’m so introverted. I’m ready to be behind the scenes. I’m 36, but I’ve been doing this for 20 years.” But no sooner than those rumors and comments circulated than Phillippe and his people stepped forward to correct them. They are going with the battle-tested “taken out of context’ strategy, suggesting that rumors of Phillippe’s acting demise were greatly exaggerated and that he is merely looking to expand his producing and directing work while also continuing to be seen on the big screen. An optimist might argue that more time producing and directing should theoretically leave less time for his (bad) acting on-screen and I might buy into that argument if not for that fact that Phillippe currently has four projects in the works: By Virtue Fall, Chronicle, Tlatelolco: Mexico 68 and Setup. That sounds to me very much like a man who plans on acting in the present, the future and the distant future. We’re stuck with Ryan Phillippe and the many other semi-talented thespians getting by on their looks…………
- I smell a new primetime drama for Fox! Prison Break may have ended several years ago in one of the most disappointing television series finales ever, but recent events at the Sarposa jail outside Kandahar, Afghanistan may have opened the door for a sequel, so to speak. For the second time in just three years, inmates have managed to escape the prison, one of the country’s largest. Nearly 500 prisoners, including Taliban commanders and fighters, escaped overnight through a tunnel beneath a prison cell. A Taliban spokesman claimed that the tunnel was more than 1,180 ft. long and took five months to complete. The spokesman told the BBC that the tunnel led from a house rented by allies of the Taliban northeast of the prison, to the political wing, where prisoners were held. The tunnel bypassed security checkpoints and the main Kandahar-Kabul road and was created using heavy digging equipment. There was reportedly so much earth removed that the group hauled it away and sold it. Engineers were involved in the digging as well, making one wonder how all of this went on and no one at the prison was aware. Or maybe, prison employees were aware and chose a nice under-the-table handout to stay silent. Prison officials showed media members the hole in the cement floor of the prison cell, revealing an opening 3 ft. in diameter leading to a tunnel that tunnel straight down for about 5 ft. and appeared to go in the direction of a mud-walled compound with a brown gate and shops on either side. According to the Taliban spokesman, three militants inside the prison had known about the plan and herded prisoners to the tunnel. Mohammad Abdullah, one of the inmates at Sarposa who Taliban spokesmen said had helped organize the escape, alleged that “friends” obtained copies of cell keys prior to the escape, with friends believed to be code for prison guards. When the escape went down, organizers opened cell doors for other prisoners and led them to the room with the tunnel in small groups. Abdullah said in an interview that there were no guards inside the cell where the tunnel emerged. “At the other end, in the house where the tunnel started, we positioned suicide bombers so that if something happened, if fighting broke out, they could respond," he stated. Abdullah put the number of escaped prisoners at 541, with the operation beginning at 11 p.m. local time on Sunday and ending four and a half hours later. Prison officials refused to comment on the escaped inmates, but another Taliban spokesman said about 106 of the inmates were commanders - four of them former provincial chiefs. Once inside the safe house, escapees were loaded into vehicles and taken to "safe places" while the Taliban alerted the media about what had just happened. Prison officials reportedly did not discover the remnants of the escape until 4 a.m. and it took the governor of Kandahar province, Tooryalai Wesa, about two minutes to declare that the breakout was "absolutely the fault of the ignorance of the security forces.” Police have organized a massive search operation for the inmates and had already rearrested 26 by the end of the day Sunday along with two men shot as they attempted to escape. For the rest of the escapees, a Fox contract could be waiting for you……….
- Hmm, so injecting poison into your face could lead to problems? What the freak? No one could have seen that coming, yet here we are, digesting news that having Botox injections to smooth facial wrinkles dulls people's ability to read emotions in others, at least according to a study led by David Neal, a professor of psychology at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and co-author Tanya Chartrand. These two brilliant scientific minds published their findings in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science in a move deliberately designed to strike fear and panic into the heart of every plastic, superficial southern California cougar who hears about the study. The study examined the supposition that one way humans read the feelings of others is by mimicking their facial expressions, after which muscular feedback from our faces to our brains helps us decide which emotions the expressions correspond to. By jamming poison into your grill and firming it up artificially, you lessen your ability to mimic others’ facial expressions, in turn reducing your ability to fully interpret the emotions you are trying to read. Based on this theory, Neal and Chartrand conducted two experiments, one to dampen facial feedback signals and one to amplify them. In the dampening experiment, researchers compared a group that had an injection that reduces muscular feedback (the Botox group) and another group that did not (the control group, which received a dermal filler). The emotion perception of the Botox group was “significantly impaired," amazingly. In the amplifying experiment, researchers tested the idea that feedback signals are stronger when facial muscles try to contract but meet resistance. They had subjects apply a special gel to their face and found that "emotion perception improved, and did so only for emotion judgments that theoretically could benefit from facial feedback.” Neal characterized the ability to mimic the facial expressions of others as a way of getting "a window into their inner world.” He then fired a shot across the bow of every SoCal plastic surgeon by declaring, “with Botox, that window is a little darker.” Wow, that’s harsh. If people want to dull their emotional perception by paralyzing their facial muscles for shallow, superficial reasons, then who are any of us to condemn them? Of course, people shallow and self-absorbed enough to Botox their faces in the first place probably wouldn’t be so great at perceiving others’ emotions anyhow because that would require them to realize that people other than themselves exist………..
- Relations between Derek Jeter and the New York Yankees turned bitter last fall and winter when the two sides engaged in contentious contract talks and according to a new took, "The Captain: The Journey of Derek Jeter," that relationship may have been irreparably damaged by what transpired. The book details a Nov. 30 meeting between Jeter, his agent Casey Close, Creative Artists Agency attorney Terry Prince and Yankees general manager Brian Cashman in which Jeter stayed for only the first 45 minutes, telling Cashman and other Yankees personnel how angry he was that they had made details of the negotiations public. After informing Cashman, team president Randy Levine and co-owner Hal Steinbrenner of his feelings, Jeter reportedly got up to leave and Cashman asked him to sit back down and hear him out. "You said all you wanted was what was fair," the GM told the Jeter. "How much higher do we have to be than the highest offer for it to be fair?" That remark apparently struck a nerve with the future hall of famer, who received no other offers during free agency and ultimately signed a three-year, $51 million guaranteed deal plus an option year and incentive bonuses. The team decided to take the negotiations public after Close said during in interview that the Yankees' negotiating stance was "baffling." Steinbrenner allowed Cashman to launch a public attack on Jeter, leading to a divisive quote from Cashman that he should test the market to "see if there's something he would prefer other than this." In the end, Jeter met with Levine in the shortstop’s Trump World Tower home the day before finalizing the contract and was able to sway Levine enough that he added an extra $4-5 million to the team’s offer. Another aspect of Jeter’s strained relationship with the team to be detailed in the book centers on his relationship with Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez, which hit a low point in a loss to Baltimore in 2006 in which the two players came together for a dropped pop-up. The ball dropped between them and in full view of everyone in the ballpark, Jeter gave Rodriguez a death stare that led then-manager Joe Torre to scold both players. Cashman reportedly asked Torre to talk to Jeter about improving his relationship with Rodriguez and Cashman decided to step in when Torre refused. "Listen, this has to stop," he told Jeter. "Everybody in the press box, every team official, everyone watching, they saw you look at the ball on the ground and look at him with disgust like you were saying, 'That's your mess, you clean it up.'" Jeter countered, "Show me the video. Show me the video." Cashman declined, but apparently both he and Jeter never let go of the animosity and unease created by that incident and several others since…………
- Oh, so close. The world seemed to be on the verge of getting rid of one more mediocre, forgettable, mildly good-looking actor and then the truth had to jump up and bite us all in the behind. Reports surfaced over the weekend that actor Ryan Phillippe wanted to retire. Cinema buffs will recall his memorable roles in…..umm….uh……never mind. Honestly, Phillippe never had any great or memorable roles and is best known for being married to Reese Witherspoon for a few years. Beyond that, he’s as forgettable and easily replaceable an actor as Hollywood has seen in years. The less of these quasi-talented hacks hanging around the industry, the better. “I’m going to spend a third of my year in New York… I think I’m going to end my acting career,” he is quoted as saying. “I’m so introverted. I’m ready to be behind the scenes. I’m 36, but I’ve been doing this for 20 years.” But no sooner than those rumors and comments circulated than Phillippe and his people stepped forward to correct them. They are going with the battle-tested “taken out of context’ strategy, suggesting that rumors of Phillippe’s acting demise were greatly exaggerated and that he is merely looking to expand his producing and directing work while also continuing to be seen on the big screen. An optimist might argue that more time producing and directing should theoretically leave less time for his (bad) acting on-screen and I might buy into that argument if not for that fact that Phillippe currently has four projects in the works: By Virtue Fall, Chronicle, Tlatelolco: Mexico 68 and Setup. That sounds to me very much like a man who plans on acting in the present, the future and the distant future. We’re stuck with Ryan Phillippe and the many other semi-talented thespians getting by on their looks…………
- I smell a new primetime drama for Fox! Prison Break may have ended several years ago in one of the most disappointing television series finales ever, but recent events at the Sarposa jail outside Kandahar, Afghanistan may have opened the door for a sequel, so to speak. For the second time in just three years, inmates have managed to escape the prison, one of the country’s largest. Nearly 500 prisoners, including Taliban commanders and fighters, escaped overnight through a tunnel beneath a prison cell. A Taliban spokesman claimed that the tunnel was more than 1,180 ft. long and took five months to complete. The spokesman told the BBC that the tunnel led from a house rented by allies of the Taliban northeast of the prison, to the political wing, where prisoners were held. The tunnel bypassed security checkpoints and the main Kandahar-Kabul road and was created using heavy digging equipment. There was reportedly so much earth removed that the group hauled it away and sold it. Engineers were involved in the digging as well, making one wonder how all of this went on and no one at the prison was aware. Or maybe, prison employees were aware and chose a nice under-the-table handout to stay silent. Prison officials showed media members the hole in the cement floor of the prison cell, revealing an opening 3 ft. in diameter leading to a tunnel that tunnel straight down for about 5 ft. and appeared to go in the direction of a mud-walled compound with a brown gate and shops on either side. According to the Taliban spokesman, three militants inside the prison had known about the plan and herded prisoners to the tunnel. Mohammad Abdullah, one of the inmates at Sarposa who Taliban spokesmen said had helped organize the escape, alleged that “friends” obtained copies of cell keys prior to the escape, with friends believed to be code for prison guards. When the escape went down, organizers opened cell doors for other prisoners and led them to the room with the tunnel in small groups. Abdullah said in an interview that there were no guards inside the cell where the tunnel emerged. “At the other end, in the house where the tunnel started, we positioned suicide bombers so that if something happened, if fighting broke out, they could respond," he stated. Abdullah put the number of escaped prisoners at 541, with the operation beginning at 11 p.m. local time on Sunday and ending four and a half hours later. Prison officials refused to comment on the escaped inmates, but another Taliban spokesman said about 106 of the inmates were commanders - four of them former provincial chiefs. Once inside the safe house, escapees were loaded into vehicles and taken to "safe places" while the Taliban alerted the media about what had just happened. Prison officials reportedly did not discover the remnants of the escape until 4 a.m. and it took the governor of Kandahar province, Tooryalai Wesa, about two minutes to declare that the breakout was "absolutely the fault of the ignorance of the security forces.” Police have organized a massive search operation for the inmates and had already rearrested 26 by the end of the day Sunday along with two men shot as they attempted to escape. For the rest of the escapees, a Fox contract could be waiting for you……….
- Hmm, so injecting poison into your face could lead to problems? What the freak? No one could have seen that coming, yet here we are, digesting news that having Botox injections to smooth facial wrinkles dulls people's ability to read emotions in others, at least according to a study led by David Neal, a professor of psychology at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and co-author Tanya Chartrand. These two brilliant scientific minds published their findings in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science in a move deliberately designed to strike fear and panic into the heart of every plastic, superficial southern California cougar who hears about the study. The study examined the supposition that one way humans read the feelings of others is by mimicking their facial expressions, after which muscular feedback from our faces to our brains helps us decide which emotions the expressions correspond to. By jamming poison into your grill and firming it up artificially, you lessen your ability to mimic others’ facial expressions, in turn reducing your ability to fully interpret the emotions you are trying to read. Based on this theory, Neal and Chartrand conducted two experiments, one to dampen facial feedback signals and one to amplify them. In the dampening experiment, researchers compared a group that had an injection that reduces muscular feedback (the Botox group) and another group that did not (the control group, which received a dermal filler). The emotion perception of the Botox group was “significantly impaired," amazingly. In the amplifying experiment, researchers tested the idea that feedback signals are stronger when facial muscles try to contract but meet resistance. They had subjects apply a special gel to their face and found that "emotion perception improved, and did so only for emotion judgments that theoretically could benefit from facial feedback.” Neal characterized the ability to mimic the facial expressions of others as a way of getting "a window into their inner world.” He then fired a shot across the bow of every SoCal plastic surgeon by declaring, “with Botox, that window is a little darker.” Wow, that’s harsh. If people want to dull their emotional perception by paralyzing their facial muscles for shallow, superficial reasons, then who are any of us to condemn them? Of course, people shallow and self-absorbed enough to Botox their faces in the first place probably wouldn’t be so great at perceiving others’ emotions anyhow because that would require them to realize that people other than themselves exist………..
- Relations between Derek Jeter and the New York Yankees turned bitter last fall and winter when the two sides engaged in contentious contract talks and according to a new took, "The Captain: The Journey of Derek Jeter," that relationship may have been irreparably damaged by what transpired. The book details a Nov. 30 meeting between Jeter, his agent Casey Close, Creative Artists Agency attorney Terry Prince and Yankees general manager Brian Cashman in which Jeter stayed for only the first 45 minutes, telling Cashman and other Yankees personnel how angry he was that they had made details of the negotiations public. After informing Cashman, team president Randy Levine and co-owner Hal Steinbrenner of his feelings, Jeter reportedly got up to leave and Cashman asked him to sit back down and hear him out. "You said all you wanted was what was fair," the GM told the Jeter. "How much higher do we have to be than the highest offer for it to be fair?" That remark apparently struck a nerve with the future hall of famer, who received no other offers during free agency and ultimately signed a three-year, $51 million guaranteed deal plus an option year and incentive bonuses. The team decided to take the negotiations public after Close said during in interview that the Yankees' negotiating stance was "baffling." Steinbrenner allowed Cashman to launch a public attack on Jeter, leading to a divisive quote from Cashman that he should test the market to "see if there's something he would prefer other than this." In the end, Jeter met with Levine in the shortstop’s Trump World Tower home the day before finalizing the contract and was able to sway Levine enough that he added an extra $4-5 million to the team’s offer. Another aspect of Jeter’s strained relationship with the team to be detailed in the book centers on his relationship with Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez, which hit a low point in a loss to Baltimore in 2006 in which the two players came together for a dropped pop-up. The ball dropped between them and in full view of everyone in the ballpark, Jeter gave Rodriguez a death stare that led then-manager Joe Torre to scold both players. Cashman reportedly asked Torre to talk to Jeter about improving his relationship with Rodriguez and Cashman decided to step in when Torre refused. "Listen, this has to stop," he told Jeter. "Everybody in the press box, every team official, everyone watching, they saw you look at the ball on the ground and look at him with disgust like you were saying, 'That's your mess, you clean it up.'" Jeter countered, "Show me the video. Show me the video." Cashman declined, but apparently both he and Jeter never let go of the animosity and unease created by that incident and several others since…………
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Horse pride, movie news and PlayStation network troubles
- Lawrence (Mass.) may not be the first place that comes to mind when looking for a good political corruption scandal to sink your teeth into, but perhaps the time has come to shift that paradigm. Lawrence Mayor William Lantigua is the man to thank for that, as he is at the center of a growing investigation by state and federal officials. According to multiple sources, the FBI and Essex District Attorney’s Office are looking into whether the mayor is exhibiting favoritism in handing out contracts to tow truck companies in the city. Other issues include whether Lantigua has any financial ties with the nightclubs he patronizes, which would be a major conflict of interest because his wife is on the board that approves liquor licenses. Asked about the allegations against him, Lantigua was adamant that the claims have no factual basis. “If you check background, the same companies that were here when I was elected are the same companies that are here today,” Lantigua stated of the charges of bias in contracts for towing. “I do not have any deals with them today.” As for his wife’s position on the liquor board, the mayor pointed out that his wife has been on the board for several years and has never been accused of anything untoward. “There is no corruption,” Lantigua fumed. “At the end of the day I’m not breaking any law and I will be standing tall when everything is said and done.” The FBI is reportedly leaning largely on Lawrence Police as a source of information in the case, but Lantigua claimed that he is currently unaware of any sort of investigation against him. In truth, such an investigation would not be that out of the ordinary for Lantigua, who has been the source of controversy for much of his term, including heavy criticism for trying to hold on to his job as state representative while he was mayor. He has also fought bitter battles with the fire department and police department over layoffs as a result of budget cuts, but has maintained that he is proud of the job his administration has done thus far while denouncing the claims against him as “lies” and promising to cooperate fully with any investigation. Add all of the parts up and the situation has every necessary ingredient for a major scandal that could drag on for months, so get a comfortable seat and get your popcorn ready…………
- Two weekends, two wins and a very healthy start for Fox’s animated bird flick Rio. Last weekend’s top film was this weekend’s top film as well, with a $26.8 million haul boosting the movie’s total take to $81.2 million despite a 32-percent dropoff from its opening weekend. Second place went to the latest remake of the exact same damn movie Tyler Perry has been making and pawning off as new each time for a decade or so, Tyler Perry's Madea's Big Happy Family. The latest “new” version of this cinematic stink bomb made $25.7 million in its debut weekend and nearly did enough to unseat Rio. Another newcomer to the box office landed in third place, with feel-good drama Water for Elephants finding its way to $17.5 million, a solid start against the backdrop of a $38 million budget. Hop hung around the top of the earnings race as well, chasing two first-place finishes and a third place result in its first three weeks with a fourth-place result on Easter weekend, collecting $12.5 million to raise its cumulative total over the $100 million mark at $100.5 million for one month’s work. Last among the top five was Scream 4, which continued to remind one and all that the Scream franchise should have died after one installment (and possibly sooner) by making a meager $7.1 million for a two-week tally of $31.2 million. The rest of the top 10 was comprised of: African Cats (No. 6 in its debut weekend despite a narrow release in just 1,220 theaters, making $6.4 million), Soul Surfer (No. 7 with $5.6 million in its third weekend of release to bring its running total to $28.6 million and rising), Insidious (No. 8 with $5.4 million and $44.2 million in one month in theaters), Hanna (No. 9 as its disappointing run continues with $31.7 million in earnings after three weeks) and Source Code (No. 10 and even more disappointing, having made a paltry $44.6 million in four weeks). Two films dropping out of the top 10 from last weekend were the abysmal Arthur - thanks for another awful and disappointing movie, Russell Brand - (No. 11) and Limitless (No. 12)……………
- When is a horse not just a horse, of course? When that horse lives in Turkmenistan, of course. For the geographically ignorant, Turkmenistan is a mainly Muslim and energy-rich Central Asian nation of 5 million people. Most people around the world know nothing about the country and might guess that it’s a made-up nation if quizzed on the spot. Not knowing much about Turkmenistan is one thing, but don’t you dare sleep on the slim and graceful Akhal-Teke horse breed, which is a source of pride for Turkmenistan. President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov has embraced the tradition and this weekend, the country was swept into an equine frenzy to celebrate Akhal-Teke horses, complete with a grand horse show and an academic conference on the animal. The weekend was capped by Sunday’s opening of the four new lavish race tracks. Festivities from the event were broadcast across Turkmenistan all weekend long and also shown on a giant screen in the capital of Ashbagat. Following the opening ceremonies, Berdymukhamedov delivered an address broadcast to the new hippodromes. Even for Turkmenistan, a former Soviet republic, the sheer size and pageantry of the weekend was over-the-top. Akhal-Teke horses have always been popular in the country, but their popularity took on a whole new dimension when late eccentric President Saparmurat Niyazov banned the export of the horses in an effort to preserve the breed. Berdymukhamedov came to power after Niyazov's death in late 2006 and kept the ban in place. He has also taken a slightly difference tact when it comes to raising the horse's cultural status. His strategy has been heavily reliant on his own action hero-type reputation and Saturday’s performance before hundreds of cheering and flag-waving spectators at the presidential equestrian complex only furthered that approach. He topped the performance off by having a dove land on his shoulder to finish the show. Teaming his reputation with Akhal-Teke horses could be a brilliant idea. Similar breeds have been used by Central Asian peoples for thousands of years and are legendarily rumored to have been ridden by the armies of Alexander the Great. Keeping the breed pure has been a source of pride in Turkmenistan since long before there was a Turkmenistan, back when nomadic tribes that occupied the desert lands the country is consists of. Honoring that tradition with four modern horse racing tracks - and a fifth new race track set to open later this year - and a lavish celebration including international experts from countries including the U.S., France, China and Russia to discuss the future of the Akhal-Teke breed might seem frivolous to outsiders, but not to Turkmens. According to the state-run Turkmen Atlary equine association 3,000 Akhal-Teke horses call the country home, of which 500 are owned by the president. Berdymukhamedov also penned an epigraph for a newly issued book about the Akhal-Teke called "The Flight of the Heavenly Horses" in which he wrote, “We shall not allow attention toward our horses to falter by one iota, for they are our pride and glory, the source of our inspiration.” That sounds like a man who knows his country’s strength and is playing to it…………
- All of that talk about the NFL being confident it won’t miss any regular season games due to the ongoing lockout and labor unrest……not so much, not if you take a closer look at the recently released schedule for the upcoming season. That schedule leaves open the possibility that the first three weeks of scheduled games could be missed and all 16 regular-season games could still be played. All 16 schedule games for Week 3 of the season feature teams with the same bye week later in the season. That means those teams could make up missed games on what was originally scheduled to be their bye and with the league having built on an extra (and unnecessary) week between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl and the possibility that the Super Bowl could be played a week later than its originally scheduled date of Feb. 5, 2012 you have a nice built-in buffer to weather a prolonged lockout. Presently, the season is scheduled to begin on Sept. 8, with a full slate of games on Sept. 11-12. With the buffer, the league could start the season as late as Oct. 2, 2011 and still finish the Super Bowl by Feb. 12, 2012. "While the uncertainty remains, it is impossible to plan for every eventuality in terms of the playing schedule," NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said. "If and when it becomes clear that we cannot play the schedule as it was announced, we will make the appropriate adjustments with an eye toward minimizing changes." McCarthy also pointed out the adaptability provided by flexible scheduling for the Sunday night games late in the season and the league’s ability to switch games from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on a given Sunday afternoon. To keep its buffer in place, the league has also asked clubs not to book their stadiums during their bye weeks. A cynic might look at these preparations and wonder if the league isn’t take a much more cynical approach of its own to the labor battle, but McCarthy insisted that is not so. "Our goal is to play this schedule as it is announced. We are working as hard
as possible to eliminate the labor uncertainty and proceed with the 2011 season as scheduled," he added. Working hard must be a relative term, as four court-ordered mediation sessions between the NFL and its locked-out players ended Wednesday after a federal judge in Minneapolis decided to give both parties an extended break that is expected to last until the two sides reconvene on May 16. In the interim, U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson is expected to decide well before then on the players' request to immediately lift the lockout, which is now in its sixth week. But hey, with two sides working so hard and clearly this close to a deal, it’s only a matter of time, right? Never mind…………
- If that special gamer in your life has been even more surly and socially handicapped than usual the past few days, you might want to cut them some slack. Odds are, they are one of the millions of PlayStation users dealing with a four-day (and counting) PlayStation Network outage that has even the suits at Sony scratching their heads. Users around the world have been greeted with an error message reading "80710A06" whenever they try to connect up to play some online Mortal Kombat, Portal 2, or SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs. The problem surfaced Wednesday with Sony’s admission that, "We're aware certain functions of PlayStation Network are down." Senior director of corporate communications and social media Patrick Seybold addressed the problem, but did not provide any information as to when the problem might be resolved. The situation took a turn for the worse Thursday with the network still down and Sony stating it would be another day or two before the online component of the PlayStation system would be functional again. Other gaming consoles have experienced similar outages, but gamers became increasingly impatient throughout the day Thursday and when Friday dawned and the network was still down, impatience began turning towards an angry mob mentality. The one silver lining Friday was the revelation of a few clues about why the network was down, with Seybold claiming Sony purposefully shut the network down to address an "external intrusion" that hit the PlayStation Network and the company's Qriocity service. Once again, no details were given on what the "external intrusion" might have been, but unconfirmed rumors suggested that a denial-of-service attack targeted the primary PlayStation Network server. Additional denial-of-service attacks allegedly went after PlayStation Network servers that house user account information and the attack even affected administrator developer accounts. The No. 1 suspect in the early part of the investigation? None other than Anonymous–the hactivist group that previously targeted Sony with alleged denial-of-service attacks. Anonymous, which has hacked sites and accounts of anyone opposing it or who violates any of its core values, has been at odds with Sony over the company's legal pursuit against alleged PS3 jailbreaker George Hotz. A glimmer of hope for PlayStation users came Saturday, when Seybold posted an update saying Sony is using the situation as an opportunity to fortify its infrastructure even better than before, leading to the longer delay. "Though this task is time-consuming, we decided it was worth the time necessary to provide the system with additional security," Seybold wrote. No timeline has been given for the network returning the functionality, but it certainly cannot come soon enough for gamers now forced to endure the insufferable pains of playing video games by themselves, in their living rooms and basements, without being connected to the rest of the world……….
- Two weekends, two wins and a very healthy start for Fox’s animated bird flick Rio. Last weekend’s top film was this weekend’s top film as well, with a $26.8 million haul boosting the movie’s total take to $81.2 million despite a 32-percent dropoff from its opening weekend. Second place went to the latest remake of the exact same damn movie Tyler Perry has been making and pawning off as new each time for a decade or so, Tyler Perry's Madea's Big Happy Family. The latest “new” version of this cinematic stink bomb made $25.7 million in its debut weekend and nearly did enough to unseat Rio. Another newcomer to the box office landed in third place, with feel-good drama Water for Elephants finding its way to $17.5 million, a solid start against the backdrop of a $38 million budget. Hop hung around the top of the earnings race as well, chasing two first-place finishes and a third place result in its first three weeks with a fourth-place result on Easter weekend, collecting $12.5 million to raise its cumulative total over the $100 million mark at $100.5 million for one month’s work. Last among the top five was Scream 4, which continued to remind one and all that the Scream franchise should have died after one installment (and possibly sooner) by making a meager $7.1 million for a two-week tally of $31.2 million. The rest of the top 10 was comprised of: African Cats (No. 6 in its debut weekend despite a narrow release in just 1,220 theaters, making $6.4 million), Soul Surfer (No. 7 with $5.6 million in its third weekend of release to bring its running total to $28.6 million and rising), Insidious (No. 8 with $5.4 million and $44.2 million in one month in theaters), Hanna (No. 9 as its disappointing run continues with $31.7 million in earnings after three weeks) and Source Code (No. 10 and even more disappointing, having made a paltry $44.6 million in four weeks). Two films dropping out of the top 10 from last weekend were the abysmal Arthur - thanks for another awful and disappointing movie, Russell Brand - (No. 11) and Limitless (No. 12)……………
- When is a horse not just a horse, of course? When that horse lives in Turkmenistan, of course. For the geographically ignorant, Turkmenistan is a mainly Muslim and energy-rich Central Asian nation of 5 million people. Most people around the world know nothing about the country and might guess that it’s a made-up nation if quizzed on the spot. Not knowing much about Turkmenistan is one thing, but don’t you dare sleep on the slim and graceful Akhal-Teke horse breed, which is a source of pride for Turkmenistan. President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov has embraced the tradition and this weekend, the country was swept into an equine frenzy to celebrate Akhal-Teke horses, complete with a grand horse show and an academic conference on the animal. The weekend was capped by Sunday’s opening of the four new lavish race tracks. Festivities from the event were broadcast across Turkmenistan all weekend long and also shown on a giant screen in the capital of Ashbagat. Following the opening ceremonies, Berdymukhamedov delivered an address broadcast to the new hippodromes. Even for Turkmenistan, a former Soviet republic, the sheer size and pageantry of the weekend was over-the-top. Akhal-Teke horses have always been popular in the country, but their popularity took on a whole new dimension when late eccentric President Saparmurat Niyazov banned the export of the horses in an effort to preserve the breed. Berdymukhamedov came to power after Niyazov's death in late 2006 and kept the ban in place. He has also taken a slightly difference tact when it comes to raising the horse's cultural status. His strategy has been heavily reliant on his own action hero-type reputation and Saturday’s performance before hundreds of cheering and flag-waving spectators at the presidential equestrian complex only furthered that approach. He topped the performance off by having a dove land on his shoulder to finish the show. Teaming his reputation with Akhal-Teke horses could be a brilliant idea. Similar breeds have been used by Central Asian peoples for thousands of years and are legendarily rumored to have been ridden by the armies of Alexander the Great. Keeping the breed pure has been a source of pride in Turkmenistan since long before there was a Turkmenistan, back when nomadic tribes that occupied the desert lands the country is consists of. Honoring that tradition with four modern horse racing tracks - and a fifth new race track set to open later this year - and a lavish celebration including international experts from countries including the U.S., France, China and Russia to discuss the future of the Akhal-Teke breed might seem frivolous to outsiders, but not to Turkmens. According to the state-run Turkmen Atlary equine association 3,000 Akhal-Teke horses call the country home, of which 500 are owned by the president. Berdymukhamedov also penned an epigraph for a newly issued book about the Akhal-Teke called "The Flight of the Heavenly Horses" in which he wrote, “We shall not allow attention toward our horses to falter by one iota, for they are our pride and glory, the source of our inspiration.” That sounds like a man who knows his country’s strength and is playing to it…………
- All of that talk about the NFL being confident it won’t miss any regular season games due to the ongoing lockout and labor unrest……not so much, not if you take a closer look at the recently released schedule for the upcoming season. That schedule leaves open the possibility that the first three weeks of scheduled games could be missed and all 16 regular-season games could still be played. All 16 schedule games for Week 3 of the season feature teams with the same bye week later in the season. That means those teams could make up missed games on what was originally scheduled to be their bye and with the league having built on an extra (and unnecessary) week between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl and the possibility that the Super Bowl could be played a week later than its originally scheduled date of Feb. 5, 2012 you have a nice built-in buffer to weather a prolonged lockout. Presently, the season is scheduled to begin on Sept. 8, with a full slate of games on Sept. 11-12. With the buffer, the league could start the season as late as Oct. 2, 2011 and still finish the Super Bowl by Feb. 12, 2012. "While the uncertainty remains, it is impossible to plan for every eventuality in terms of the playing schedule," NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said. "If and when it becomes clear that we cannot play the schedule as it was announced, we will make the appropriate adjustments with an eye toward minimizing changes." McCarthy also pointed out the adaptability provided by flexible scheduling for the Sunday night games late in the season and the league’s ability to switch games from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on a given Sunday afternoon. To keep its buffer in place, the league has also asked clubs not to book their stadiums during their bye weeks. A cynic might look at these preparations and wonder if the league isn’t take a much more cynical approach of its own to the labor battle, but McCarthy insisted that is not so. "Our goal is to play this schedule as it is announced. We are working as hard
as possible to eliminate the labor uncertainty and proceed with the 2011 season as scheduled," he added. Working hard must be a relative term, as four court-ordered mediation sessions between the NFL and its locked-out players ended Wednesday after a federal judge in Minneapolis decided to give both parties an extended break that is expected to last until the two sides reconvene on May 16. In the interim, U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson is expected to decide well before then on the players' request to immediately lift the lockout, which is now in its sixth week. But hey, with two sides working so hard and clearly this close to a deal, it’s only a matter of time, right? Never mind…………
- If that special gamer in your life has been even more surly and socially handicapped than usual the past few days, you might want to cut them some slack. Odds are, they are one of the millions of PlayStation users dealing with a four-day (and counting) PlayStation Network outage that has even the suits at Sony scratching their heads. Users around the world have been greeted with an error message reading "80710A06" whenever they try to connect up to play some online Mortal Kombat, Portal 2, or SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs. The problem surfaced Wednesday with Sony’s admission that, "We're aware certain functions of PlayStation Network are down." Senior director of corporate communications and social media Patrick Seybold addressed the problem, but did not provide any information as to when the problem might be resolved. The situation took a turn for the worse Thursday with the network still down and Sony stating it would be another day or two before the online component of the PlayStation system would be functional again. Other gaming consoles have experienced similar outages, but gamers became increasingly impatient throughout the day Thursday and when Friday dawned and the network was still down, impatience began turning towards an angry mob mentality. The one silver lining Friday was the revelation of a few clues about why the network was down, with Seybold claiming Sony purposefully shut the network down to address an "external intrusion" that hit the PlayStation Network and the company's Qriocity service. Once again, no details were given on what the "external intrusion" might have been, but unconfirmed rumors suggested that a denial-of-service attack targeted the primary PlayStation Network server. Additional denial-of-service attacks allegedly went after PlayStation Network servers that house user account information and the attack even affected administrator developer accounts. The No. 1 suspect in the early part of the investigation? None other than Anonymous–the hactivist group that previously targeted Sony with alleged denial-of-service attacks. Anonymous, which has hacked sites and accounts of anyone opposing it or who violates any of its core values, has been at odds with Sony over the company's legal pursuit against alleged PS3 jailbreaker George Hotz. A glimmer of hope for PlayStation users came Saturday, when Seybold posted an update saying Sony is using the situation as an opportunity to fortify its infrastructure even better than before, leading to the longer delay. "Though this task is time-consuming, we decided it was worth the time necessary to provide the system with additional security," Seybold wrote. No timeline has been given for the network returning the functionality, but it certainly cannot come soon enough for gamers now forced to endure the insufferable pains of playing video games by themselves, in their living rooms and basements, without being connected to the rest of the world……….
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Ideas for Congress, NBA moving speculation and soap opera fans dealt another blow
- Are you paying attention, United States Congress? While you all are haggling over long-term budget fixes, pork projects and ethics violations, the country is going to hell and you’re doing nothing about it. Perhaps it’s time to take a cue from your compatriots in Kyrgyzstan, where members of the country’s divided parliament slaughtered seven rams before their morning session on Thursday, in hopes of banishing "evil spirits" disrupting their work. Ever since Kyrgyzstan elected a new legislature in October in a bid to build the first parliamentary democracy in former Soviet Central Asia, the entire group has been a giant morass of uncooperativeness and inefficacy. In a region typically run by authoritarian presidents, creating a democracy is no easy task. However, the level of recriminations and disputes in parliament has been ridiculous thus far, leading a senior government member to resign temporarily. The fragile governing coalition has found itself under attack on a daily basis and no real solutions have come forth on dealing with the problem of Kyrgyzstan lying on a drug trafficking route out of Afghanistan. For a country that saw its president toppled by a violent revolt last April, unrest is not the word you want being thrown around. Yet after more than 400 people were killed in ethnic riots in June, unrest has been the order of the day for nearly every day since. So how does a legislature at odds with one another mend its differences, get on the same page and make some actual progress? "We decided to resort to popular customs, in order for this building not to see bloodshed anymore," member of parliament Myktybek Abdyldayev said after the rams were sacrificed on a green lawn in front of the government headquarters. Ironically, the parliament building is the same building two presidents fled this building to escape violent popular uprisings in 2005 and 2010. "We acted like those who light candles or fumigate their homes in order to banish an evil spirit from their conscience," Abdyldayev said. Sacrificing rams is a common custom in Kyrgyzstan, an impoverished, predominantly Muslim nation of 5.4 million, typically during funeral repasts and at solemn ceremonies of reconciliation. "This is a popular ancient tradition, carried out in order to avoid a repeat of last year's tragic events and for peace and harmony to triumph," said parliamentarian Kurmanbek Osmonov. However, not everyone was down with the idea. Ondorush Toktonasyrov, one of those who led last year's protests that toppled President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, mocked at the ritual as "a sign of backward mentality." He went on to say that “deputies have no idea about parliamentary culture." Hey Kurmanbek, I think you might fit a little better with your unproductive American counterparts………….
- After all the rumors, all the speculation, all the time and all of the energy expended on the “probable” move of the Sacramento Kings to Anaheim for next season, apparently the NBA will not have a third southern California franchise - at least not right now. Speculation had the move as a sure thing as recently as the beginning of the week, but sources say the league now thinks the team will remain in Sacramento next season. While no one is certain of the team’s fate beyond next year, the fact that the Kings won't become the Anaheim Royals by the end of the calendar year is still something of a stunner. Kings co-owner Joe Maloof said Friday that his family is still deciding whether to move the franchise to Anaheim or stay in California's capital city and said he's "as anxious as anybody" to find out if Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson can deliver on his promise for more sponsorship support and finally finance a plan for a new arena. Johnson, a former NBA All-Star, said Thursday that he was proud of how the city had rallied from supposedly being on the brink of losing their team. If you go back a week ago from today, we thought it was virtually over," Johnson said. "And not only did we prevent the team from leaving, we got a chance to show them who we are. And when we said $7 million, and the commissioner said, 'Well, prove it,' he sent a team out and we over-delivered. I mean, this is Sacramento. This is what makes us great." His comments came after two days of meetings with NBA relocation committee chairman and Oklahoma City Thunder owner Clay Bennett and other league officials in Sacramento. That Bennett is allowed to chair any relocation committee in any league anywhere is a miscarriage of justice, given how he bought the then-Seattle Sonics and with tacit approval from the league, ripped Seattle’s team from the city and moved them to Oklahoma City without ever giving Seattle a fair shot. For their part, the Kings issued an official statement saying, "We have not made a decision with regards to relocation filing, and will not make that decision until we have more information from the NBA." The league’s Board of Governors did give the Kings an extension until May 2 to file paperwork requesting a relocation to Anaheim and at the meetings, also heard from Johnson as he presented $9.2 million in commitments for new advertising, ticket purchases and other financial support from regional businesses and other backers to prevent the team from moving to Anaheim. Yet even this success could be temporary if Johnson and other city leaders cannot find a way to replace outdated Power Balance Pavilion, formerly called Arco Arena, with a modern arena. But for now, they may have given themselves more time and that at least keeps them in the fight………….
- Soap opera fans, I know you’ve been out of touch with reality for some time, mostly because anyone watching a soap opera has no life, no friends and no regular interaction with civilization throughout the average day. If a person had any of those things, they wouldn’t be sitting inside mid-afternoon on weekdays, watching the saddest excuse for a scripted drama known to man, complete with terrible acting, absurd plots and more than a whiff of pathetic-ness. Being as out of touch as soap fans are, they may not have seen this week’s TV bombshell coming even though the rest of us have seen it rolling down the tracks for some time. ABC finally busted a burning slug into the back of the head of two of the last soap operas on television, canceling “All My Children” and “One Life to Live.” The decision sent soap fans reeling, looking for answers and grasping desperately for someone - anyone - to save their beloved (and anachronistic) shows. For whatever reason, that search led them to the queen of daytime talk shows and of the media in general, Oprah Winfrey. It was a convenient match, as Winfrey recently launched the Oprah Winfrey Network, also known as OWN. With her own network, the theory went, Winfrey could pick up the free-agent soap operas and give them new life. That idea lasted all of 24 hours or so, right up to the point Winfrey put together a hastily filmed video on YouTube debunking the idea that her network would take on the shows. Winfrey said fans had “bombarded” her with requests to help and admitted she understood “what it feels like to have a show that you love go off the air.” She praised those who fought to keep the shows alive, but then hit them with a dose of reality. “I appreciate that you all think that I could save the soaps,” Winfrey said before adding it was the “bone marrow truth” that the audience for soaps had dried up over the years. In the two-minute video, she cited how soaps went from “double-digit ratings” when she first began her TV career to lately “not even getting a full, single digit number.” Ultimately, she concluded there simply weren't enough women at home in the daytime anymore to keep the genre alive. “Believe me, if there was a dime to be made from them on broadcast television it would still be happening,” Winfrey said. “All good things come to an end.” In other words, find something else to do with your days, soap fans. Make friends, take up a hobby, get out and experience the world around you………….
- What would one of the biggest religious weekends of the year be without some kook thinking he or she has seen a sign from the Almighty in a pile of grass clippings, the bark of a tree after a lightning strike or a puddle of motor oil spilled on their garage floor? And it wouldn’t be a true American occurrence if the kook in question didn’t attempt to profit from it, right? This year’s Easter kook is Olathe, Kan. resident A.J. Straub, who was eating a morning snack at work on Friday when he found what he deemed to be a miracle from God on one of his sour cream and onion Ruffles. Two intersecting burn marks looking roughly like a cross were in the middle of the chip, which Straub was about to eat before his boss stopped him. Pointing out the incredible “miracle” of finding a “crucifix chip” on Good Friday, how did Straub’s boss respond? By telling him to take to the nearest church or suggest that he show it to friends and family as a miraculous? Nope, by putting it on eBay and trying to make a few bucks off it. Straub isn’t hoping for a financial windfall, only to make a few dollars and perhaps cover the cost of his snack. "I figure if I can at least get the 99 cents for the price of the chips," Straub said. Bizarrely enough, he went on to say how special the chip was - even though those musings sounded an awful lot like a man trying to drive up the price of a useless piece of soon-to-go-bad-and-decompose food on an Internet auction site. "The more we thought about it, the more special I guess it became," Straub said. "It's Good Friday, you know, it's a holy symbol on a holy day to religious people. So it's kind of a weird coincidence." For those who might doubt the chip’s authenticity or suggest that Straub used some sort of tool to put the burn marks on the chip himself, he said two of his co-workers witnessed him pulling the chip out of the bag and can verify that it was not tampered with. So now, Easter weekend is complete with the requisite delusional knob who thinks they have seen a sign from above on the most random and improbable of places…………
- Kids of the world, this may not come as welcome news to you, but your parents harping on you to practice the piano, hone your trombone skills or work on your clarinet playing could in fact benefit you later on in life even if you never become a professional musician. A new study led by researchers at the Emory University School of Medicine suggests that older adults with musical experience perform better on some cognitive tests than those who had never studied music. The small-scale study involved just 70 patients, but its results sync up with other studies of challenging tasks, including findings that learning a second language protects against dementia. "Musical activity throughout life may serve as a challenging cognitive exercise, making your brain fitter and more capable of accommodating the challenges of aging," study researcher Brenda Hanna-Pladdy, a neurologist at the Emory University School of Medicine, said in a statement. "Since studying an instrument requires years of practice and learning, it may create alternate connections in the brain that could compensate for cognitive declines as we get older." Study participants ranged in age from 60 to 83 and were split into three groups: one with no musical training, one with one to nine years of musical study and a third group with 10 or more years of training. None of the participants had Alzheimer's disease and all possessed similar levels of education and fitness. Even amongst the musicians, none had played professionally and the vast majority had started playing an instrument around age 10, with more than half playing the piano and about a quarter playing woodwind instruments such as the flute. All participants were given a neuropsychological assessment, including tests of verbal functioning, memory and attention. Researchers found those who had studied music the longest performed best, followed by the next group of musicians. Non-musicians scored lowest on all tests and the gap between high-level musicians and non-musicians was significant, much greater than the score differences between higher- and lower-level musicians. High-level musicians exhibited much better skills when it come to visuospatial memory, naming objects and adapting to new information. Surprisingly, whether a person continued to play music into old age didn't matter, researchers found. "Based on previous research and our study results, we believe that both the years of musical participation and the age of acquisition are crucial," Hanna-Pladdy stated. She admitted that more research is needed into the subject, but suggested that one possible explanation could be that more intelligent people tend to study music longer. Either way, feel free to pick up a copy of the latest edition of the journal Neuropsychology to read more about this fascinating study…………
- After all the rumors, all the speculation, all the time and all of the energy expended on the “probable” move of the Sacramento Kings to Anaheim for next season, apparently the NBA will not have a third southern California franchise - at least not right now. Speculation had the move as a sure thing as recently as the beginning of the week, but sources say the league now thinks the team will remain in Sacramento next season. While no one is certain of the team’s fate beyond next year, the fact that the Kings won't become the Anaheim Royals by the end of the calendar year is still something of a stunner. Kings co-owner Joe Maloof said Friday that his family is still deciding whether to move the franchise to Anaheim or stay in California's capital city and said he's "as anxious as anybody" to find out if Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson can deliver on his promise for more sponsorship support and finally finance a plan for a new arena. Johnson, a former NBA All-Star, said Thursday that he was proud of how the city had rallied from supposedly being on the brink of losing their team. If you go back a week ago from today, we thought it was virtually over," Johnson said. "And not only did we prevent the team from leaving, we got a chance to show them who we are. And when we said $7 million, and the commissioner said, 'Well, prove it,' he sent a team out and we over-delivered. I mean, this is Sacramento. This is what makes us great." His comments came after two days of meetings with NBA relocation committee chairman and Oklahoma City Thunder owner Clay Bennett and other league officials in Sacramento. That Bennett is allowed to chair any relocation committee in any league anywhere is a miscarriage of justice, given how he bought the then-Seattle Sonics and with tacit approval from the league, ripped Seattle’s team from the city and moved them to Oklahoma City without ever giving Seattle a fair shot. For their part, the Kings issued an official statement saying, "We have not made a decision with regards to relocation filing, and will not make that decision until we have more information from the NBA." The league’s Board of Governors did give the Kings an extension until May 2 to file paperwork requesting a relocation to Anaheim and at the meetings, also heard from Johnson as he presented $9.2 million in commitments for new advertising, ticket purchases and other financial support from regional businesses and other backers to prevent the team from moving to Anaheim. Yet even this success could be temporary if Johnson and other city leaders cannot find a way to replace outdated Power Balance Pavilion, formerly called Arco Arena, with a modern arena. But for now, they may have given themselves more time and that at least keeps them in the fight………….
- Soap opera fans, I know you’ve been out of touch with reality for some time, mostly because anyone watching a soap opera has no life, no friends and no regular interaction with civilization throughout the average day. If a person had any of those things, they wouldn’t be sitting inside mid-afternoon on weekdays, watching the saddest excuse for a scripted drama known to man, complete with terrible acting, absurd plots and more than a whiff of pathetic-ness. Being as out of touch as soap fans are, they may not have seen this week’s TV bombshell coming even though the rest of us have seen it rolling down the tracks for some time. ABC finally busted a burning slug into the back of the head of two of the last soap operas on television, canceling “All My Children” and “One Life to Live.” The decision sent soap fans reeling, looking for answers and grasping desperately for someone - anyone - to save their beloved (and anachronistic) shows. For whatever reason, that search led them to the queen of daytime talk shows and of the media in general, Oprah Winfrey. It was a convenient match, as Winfrey recently launched the Oprah Winfrey Network, also known as OWN. With her own network, the theory went, Winfrey could pick up the free-agent soap operas and give them new life. That idea lasted all of 24 hours or so, right up to the point Winfrey put together a hastily filmed video on YouTube debunking the idea that her network would take on the shows. Winfrey said fans had “bombarded” her with requests to help and admitted she understood “what it feels like to have a show that you love go off the air.” She praised those who fought to keep the shows alive, but then hit them with a dose of reality. “I appreciate that you all think that I could save the soaps,” Winfrey said before adding it was the “bone marrow truth” that the audience for soaps had dried up over the years. In the two-minute video, she cited how soaps went from “double-digit ratings” when she first began her TV career to lately “not even getting a full, single digit number.” Ultimately, she concluded there simply weren't enough women at home in the daytime anymore to keep the genre alive. “Believe me, if there was a dime to be made from them on broadcast television it would still be happening,” Winfrey said. “All good things come to an end.” In other words, find something else to do with your days, soap fans. Make friends, take up a hobby, get out and experience the world around you………….
- What would one of the biggest religious weekends of the year be without some kook thinking he or she has seen a sign from the Almighty in a pile of grass clippings, the bark of a tree after a lightning strike or a puddle of motor oil spilled on their garage floor? And it wouldn’t be a true American occurrence if the kook in question didn’t attempt to profit from it, right? This year’s Easter kook is Olathe, Kan. resident A.J. Straub, who was eating a morning snack at work on Friday when he found what he deemed to be a miracle from God on one of his sour cream and onion Ruffles. Two intersecting burn marks looking roughly like a cross were in the middle of the chip, which Straub was about to eat before his boss stopped him. Pointing out the incredible “miracle” of finding a “crucifix chip” on Good Friday, how did Straub’s boss respond? By telling him to take to the nearest church or suggest that he show it to friends and family as a miraculous? Nope, by putting it on eBay and trying to make a few bucks off it. Straub isn’t hoping for a financial windfall, only to make a few dollars and perhaps cover the cost of his snack. "I figure if I can at least get the 99 cents for the price of the chips," Straub said. Bizarrely enough, he went on to say how special the chip was - even though those musings sounded an awful lot like a man trying to drive up the price of a useless piece of soon-to-go-bad-and-decompose food on an Internet auction site. "The more we thought about it, the more special I guess it became," Straub said. "It's Good Friday, you know, it's a holy symbol on a holy day to religious people. So it's kind of a weird coincidence." For those who might doubt the chip’s authenticity or suggest that Straub used some sort of tool to put the burn marks on the chip himself, he said two of his co-workers witnessed him pulling the chip out of the bag and can verify that it was not tampered with. So now, Easter weekend is complete with the requisite delusional knob who thinks they have seen a sign from above on the most random and improbable of places…………
- Kids of the world, this may not come as welcome news to you, but your parents harping on you to practice the piano, hone your trombone skills or work on your clarinet playing could in fact benefit you later on in life even if you never become a professional musician. A new study led by researchers at the Emory University School of Medicine suggests that older adults with musical experience perform better on some cognitive tests than those who had never studied music. The small-scale study involved just 70 patients, but its results sync up with other studies of challenging tasks, including findings that learning a second language protects against dementia. "Musical activity throughout life may serve as a challenging cognitive exercise, making your brain fitter and more capable of accommodating the challenges of aging," study researcher Brenda Hanna-Pladdy, a neurologist at the Emory University School of Medicine, said in a statement. "Since studying an instrument requires years of practice and learning, it may create alternate connections in the brain that could compensate for cognitive declines as we get older." Study participants ranged in age from 60 to 83 and were split into three groups: one with no musical training, one with one to nine years of musical study and a third group with 10 or more years of training. None of the participants had Alzheimer's disease and all possessed similar levels of education and fitness. Even amongst the musicians, none had played professionally and the vast majority had started playing an instrument around age 10, with more than half playing the piano and about a quarter playing woodwind instruments such as the flute. All participants were given a neuropsychological assessment, including tests of verbal functioning, memory and attention. Researchers found those who had studied music the longest performed best, followed by the next group of musicians. Non-musicians scored lowest on all tests and the gap between high-level musicians and non-musicians was significant, much greater than the score differences between higher- and lower-level musicians. High-level musicians exhibited much better skills when it come to visuospatial memory, naming objects and adapting to new information. Surprisingly, whether a person continued to play music into old age didn't matter, researchers found. "Based on previous research and our study results, we believe that both the years of musical participation and the age of acquisition are crucial," Hanna-Pladdy stated. She admitted that more research is needed into the subject, but suggested that one possible explanation could be that more intelligent people tend to study music longer. Either way, feel free to pick up a copy of the latest edition of the journal Neuropsychology to read more about this fascinating study…………
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