- There are plenty of reasons to hate Russell Brand. A supposed comedian who isn't funny, an alleged actor who can’t act and a purported entertainer who’s simply not that entertaining, he’s the personification of the term boorish idiot. One need look no further than his critically panned remake of "Arthur" that bombed out of theaters earlier this year for a reason to despise him, but none of those characteristics and qualities are why Brand ran into some serious trouble over the weekend while attempting to visit Japan with wife/pop hack Katy Perry. According to tweets from Perry, Brand was held in custody by Japanese authorities on Saturday and eventually deported from the country as a result of unspecified offenses dating back nearly a decade. "So ... my husband just got deported from Japan," Perry tweeted on Saturday afternoon. "I am so. sad. I brought him all this way to show him my favorite place #tokyodreamscrushed." The Twitter rant continued an hour later when Perry claimed Brand was booted from the country for "priors from over 10 years ago!" Left unsaid was the exact nature of those prior offenses. For someone who is a self-professed former sex and drug addict with a long history of arrests in England, as well as a 2010 arrest for attacking a paparazzo at Los Angeles International Airport, they could be most anything. Brand had flown to Japan to watch Perry perform a show but she insisted after the deportation that she bore no ill will toward Japanese authorities. "But of COURSE I ♥ my Japanese fans & the show #MUSTGOON no matter the daily aftershocks or husband kidnappings! #it'snotrightbutit'soka." Brand also weighed in on the situation and tried his best to inject humor into the mix. "Planning escape from Japanese custody. It's bloody hard to dig a tunnel with a chopstick," he tweeted after his deportation on Sunday. "Stockholm Syndrome kicking in. Just asked my guard out for (vegetarian) sushi. He giggled." After exiting the country, he added, "Alcatraz! Shawshank Redemption! And now this! Ah, sweet blue bird of freedom!" Japanese immigration officials declined comment on the issue, citing privacy issues…………
- T.C. Lewis - aside from sounding like he should be an accomplished author - is now an absolute hero to any walker, runner, biker or individual who has ever been attacked by dogs whose owner is either too lazy, too incompetent or too stupid to keep chained up or fenced in. Even one incident of being out for a run or walk and having a large, angry dog come charging out of its yard and into the street to attack you is enough to turn even the most staunch dog lover into someone who has no issue with grabbing the nearest blunt instrument and beating the stupid canine until it stops attacking. Lewis, a Kirkland, Wash. resident, was walking his German Shepherd in Juanita Beach Park in downtown Kirkland when three unleashed pitbulls attacked them. Lewis and multiple witnesses said the owner of the pitbulls tried to call off his dogs and tackled one of them after it bit the German Shepherd. However, those same witnesses told police the man was not having any luck getting his pitbulls under control and that left Lewis to pull the other two pitbulls off his dog. "They were trying to take my dog to the ground, so I grabbed one dog by the collar and kicked the other one as hard as I could. I got my dog loose," Lewis said. Even that wasn’t enough to stop the pitbulls from their pursuit and at that point Lewis decided to weaponize the situation by pulling out his gun. "He started running, then the other dog came up and he's getting ready to lunge toward me and I pulled my pistol out and I shot him. I feel bad about it but then again, I don't. If he'd have bit me in the leg I'm dead," he explained. Animal lovers looking to crucify Lewis should know that the pitbull that was shot was rushed to a veterinary hospital and is expected to survive and also that Lewis has a concealed carry license and will face no charges because witnesses backed his story. If only more walkers, runners and bike rides had weapons of some kind to defend themselves against vicious, unrestrained dogs, more dog owners would keep their pets on a leash……….
- Does anyone actually get excited when Microsoft promises to deliver big news regarding any of its deficient products? Not really, but let’s all humor Bill Gates’ company as it targets Tuesday at 10 a.m. in TriBeCa in New York City as a launch point for “major” changes to its Windows Phone 7 smartphone platform. Windows Phone 7 has had a troubled history thus far, essentially from the day it was introduced in February 2010. When the platform officially launched worldwide in October 2010, it simply could not compete with Android smartphones available from most carriers. Compounding the problems, WP7 initially only launched on AT&T and T-Mobile. When Sprint declined to pick up any WP7 handsets (and didn’t do so until earlier this year) and with Verizon not releasing its first WP7 smartphone until this week, Microsoft has been dealt one setback after another. The announcement of a minor feature update for January 2011 wasn’t a big deal either, but even than small step didn’t go off without a hitch. The update was delayed until March, then the update that prepared for the update ran into trouble, the process was delayed again and then the update ran into problems with updating Samsung devices. While plans are being kept as quiet as possible, most tech experts expect Microsoft to show off the next version of Windows Phone 7, codenamed "Mango," at Tuesday’s event. Mango is known to include at least a handful of new features, such as Internet Explorer 9, better Office integration, multitasking and Twitter support in the People Hub. It will also add the ability to save and share Office documents through Office 365 and Windows Live SkyDrive, pin email folders to the home screen for faster access view emails in threaded, conversational style and access Lync Mobile, which is Microsoft's unified communications platform. During an address Monday in Japan, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that the Mango update will have 500 new features all together. He also promised more dtailed information on Tuesday about Microsoft's relationship with carriers. Unconfirmed rumors have predicted as many as nine new devices from Microsoft's manufacturing partners in the next few days. Those rumors seem farfetched because at present, there are only about a dozen WP7 handsets available right now from the likes of Dell, HTC, LG, and Samsung. Perhaps a new wave of phones will fix the problem of all current Windows 7 phones being nearly identical an indecipherable from one another. All of them have 1-GHz processors, 5-megapixel cameras and screens with the same resolution. In other words, perfectly Windows of them. All identical, all subpar and all uninspiring…………
- Good job, Saudi authorities. Big ups on re-arresting an activist who defied a ban on female drivers by getting behind the wheel and daring to turn the key, press the gas and start her trip down the road. Manal al-Sherif was accused of "violating public order" and ordered held for five days while police investigate the case. She had to know another arrest was coming after she launched a campaign against the longtime ban last week by posting a video clip on the Internet of herself behind the wheel in the eastern city of Khobar. Her plan was to inspire a broader uprising and that appeared to be just what was happening with a Facebook campaign in which participants set June 17 as the day all women should drive their cars. The page, called "Teach me how to drive so I can protect myself," was eventually taken down, but not before 12,000 people indicated their support for it. The campaign’s Twitter account was also taken down, but no word was immediately available on the status of its MySpace page (joke intended). As for Al-Sherif, she was detained for several hours on Saturday by the country's religious police and released only after signing a pledge agreeing not to drive. A Saudi security official confirmed her re-arrest Sunday at dawn but spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. Khobar prison chief Ayoub ben Nahit told a Riyadh newspaper that al-Sherif faces accusations of "violating the rules and the system by driving her car, roaming the streets of the province." He also criticized her for "inciting public opinion" by posting the video clip. At least one man fully supported her protest by driving: her brother, Mohammed al-Sherif, who was in the car with her when she drove. Oddly enough, Manal al-Sherif is an employee of state-run oil giant Saudi Aramco, where she is an expert in information technology. Being an educated corporate executive isn't enough to earn her driving privileges in the conservative kingdom and that has fanned the already burning flames of dissent over the issue of women’s rights in Saudi Arabia. Some activists have appealed to the country’s king to free al-Sherif and give women the right to drive. Thus far there has been no indication that the king and his regime have any plans to change Saudi Arabia’s status as the only country in the world that bans women -- both Saudi and foreign -- from driving. The law causes immense hardships for many Saudi families, who are forced to hire live-in drivers (at the cost of $300 to $400 a month) to ferry female relatives to work, school, shopping or the doctor. Women can't do much to change the law, especially because they are also barred from voting and sitting on the kingdom's Cabinet. Welcome to Saudi Arabia, where they still party like it’s ’99……assuming you mean 1199…………
- New York Mets principal owner Fred Wilpon doesn’t seem to like his team very much. The Wilpon family is struggling financially and has been actively looking to sell a minority share in the team in order to satisfy financial demands being made on them by a bankruptcy trustee in the Bernie Madoff case. All prospective buyers have balked at the idea of purchasing anything less than a controlling interest and perhaps having so much pressure on him and no relief in sight is finally getting to Madoff because he absolutely lit up several of his marquee players in an extensive article in The New Yorker that was originally supposed to focus on his unlikely rise to wealth. Among his targets were shortstop Jose Reyes, who clearly will not be getting a huge contract from the Mets. "He thinks he's going to get Carl Crawford money," Wilpon declared, alluding to Crawford's seven-year, $142 million contract with the Boston Red Sox. "He's had everything wrong with him. He won't get it." Done eviscerating Reyes, Wilpon moved on to right fielder Carlos Beltran. He mentioned Beltran's successful postseason with the Houston Astros in 2004 and self-deprecatingly stated, "We had some schmuck in New York who paid him based on that one series. He's 65 to 70 percent of what he was." Nothing like calling a key player a fraction of his former self, but Wilpon was far from done. Asked about star third baseman David Wright, a player in his prime and considered one of the best in baseball at his position, Wilpon deadpanned, "Really good kid. A very good player. Not a superstar." The one current Met with whom Wilpon doesn’t seem to have major issues is first baseman Ike Davis, but even in praising Davis, Wilpon still found a way to crack his team. "Good hitter," Wilpon said of Davis. "S----- team. Good hitter. ... We're snakebitten, baby." When asked to respond to his own laying a verbal back-stabbing on him, Wright replied by email: "Fred is a good man and is obviously going through some difficult times. There is nothing more productive that I can say at this time." But as bad as Wilpon’s own words may come off in the article, it’s the ringing endorsements from Madoff himself that could do the most damage to Wilpon’s reputation. In the piece, Madoff praises Wilpon and attempts to absolve the Mets ownership family of knowledge of the Ponzi scheme. That likely won't work and the players Wilpon verbally cut down probably won't feel great about showing up for work for their team either…………
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