- Just when the rivalry between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees - consistently baseball’s best - was simmering down and becoming stale, Red Sox masher David Ortiz re-ignited the flames by blatantly admiring a home run he hit off Yankees rookie Hector Noesi in a Sox-Yanks game Tuesday night and flipping his bat like he was a participant in the caber toss in some town’s annual Scottish games celebration (and if you don’t know what the caber toss is, look it up and learn). The Sox won Tuesday night by an 11-6 count and won again Wednesday to claim first place in the AL East, but it is Ortiz’s bat flip and the resulting war of words between he and Yankees manager Joe Girardi that most will remember from the series. Girardi ripped Ortiz for the bat flip and suggested it was disrespectful to the Yankees and the game of baseball. Ortiz heard the comments and sounded rather angry. "I don't care what Joe Girardi says," Ortiz said. "Take it like a man. I'm done with that." To further rub salt into the Yankees; wounds, Ortiz smacked another home run Wednesday night in the first inning off Yankees starter A.J. Burnett, then set his bat down on the ground gently. He said after the game he toned things down to avoid stirring up even more trouble. "I don't want to have you guys asking me the same questions. I got almost 370 bombs in the big leagues and everybody wants to make a big deal because I bat-flip one of them,” he told media members after the game. “(Expletive) that (expletive), man. If I have to make that video on my (expletive), let's see how many bat flips I got on this (expletive). Good night." Those comments stood in stark contrast to his words after Tuesday night’s game, in which he smirked, "I mean, it's not my first time, it's not going to be my last time. Big deal. I enjoy the game. I'm a home run hitter. It's not like I do it all the time. It's part of the excitement, you know what I mean? What can I tell you?" Girardi attempted to double back on his initial comments when asked about them Wednesday, going to one of the ultimate sports clichés of accusing the media of taking words out of context and blowing them out of proportion. Still, it’s good to have the Red Sox and Yankees both playing well, hating each other and providing compelling storylines once again………
- As a general rule, elephants are creatures a person does not want to anger. Be they African or Indian, elephants are large, powerful and can squash a person’s head like a grape with a single stomp of one of their feet. The people of India should know this lesson well, but that did not prevent an unfortunate lesson from playing out in the town of Mysore, where some wild elephants went on a rage. The elephants went on the attack after allegedly straying from forests near Muttati, terrorizing the city and causing significant property damage. Locals ran for cover and tried their best to protect their belongings, but stopping an angry elephant (unless his name happens to be Babar) is next to impossible. The only option was to allow local law enforcement to deal with the problem and lean on the forest department to concoct a plan. That plan was executed when the elephants were captured and released the next day into nearby forests. Forest department officials have been on something of an elephant-capturing streak of late, releasing an elephant they had nabbed at Polibetta in Kodagu back into the wild on May 30. An unnamed forest department official insisted the events were nothing out of the ordinary and that there was no major cause for concern. "It is common to release captured elephants in this spot and there are no incidents of fight between elephant herds," the official stated. "It is difficult to predict. But there are no fights between the relocated elephants with the natives," he said. Easy for you to say, random local forest department official. Something tells me this individual wasn’t on the ground in Mysore when the elephant rampage took place. Locals remain concerned over the change of habitat for the twin elephants believed to have strayed even as officials insist the dynamic duo could meet up with another herd and join in as the herd moves along on its merry way. Until then, people of Mysore, live with a wary eye on the horizon…………
- This still isn't resolved? Warner Bros. is still locked in a pitched battle with the Missouri tattoo artist who claims he owns a copyright on the unique tattoo first worn by former boxer Mike Tyson and now (temporarily) adorning actor Ed Helms’ face in "The Hangover: Part II" during its run in theaters? Clearly not, not if Warner Bros. is alerting the judge in the case to plans to digitally alter the faux tat on Helms’ grill for the film’s release on DVD and Blu-ray in December if it can't resolve the ongoing legal battle with the tattoo’s creator S. Victor Whitmill. Whitmill initially attempted to stop the film's release in May but was denied a preliminary injunction. Failing to get the injunction certainly was not the end of the case and now that the movie has since grossed $350 million and climbing worldwide, the battle is likely to get even more intense. The case continued in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry on Thursday and the judge set a jury trial date for February 21, 2012. The primary focus of the case is whether to award Whitmill a permanent injunction against the film's distribution and/or damages for copyright infringement. Looking to begin cashing in as soon as possible, Whitmill and his lawyers had sought a trial in August. Warner Bros. predictably opposed that plan, arguing in court documents that such a quick resolution wasn't necessary because without an agreement, it plans to digitally remove the offending tat from the movie after its theatrical run. Erasing the ink would eliminate any further alleged damages to Whitmill from his copyrighted tattoo appearing in the film, but there would still be the matter of the money made in theaters with it present. “If the parties are unable to resolve their dispute, Warner Bros. does not intend to make any use of the allegedly infringing tattoo after the film ends its run in theaters because Warner Bros. will digitally alter the film to substitute a different tattoo on Ed Helms's face," the court documents stated. The argument was enough to sway Judge Perry, who declined to set a trial date in August. Removing the tattoo would be both ridiculous on some level for the film itself and the studio and also would cost a significant amount of money, but better that than have to chip off a huge chunk of the profits to some tatted-up dude whose idea you stole without giving him credit……….
- You’ve done it again, Guinness Book of World Records. All the goodwill the Guinness name has generated by providing tasty adult beverages to the world has been squandered by this tome of stupidity, which glorifies freaks who grow their fingernails out for 25 years, losers who collect yarn until it can form a ball the size of small home and misfits who have nothing better to do than gather with thousands of other misfits and play the opening lick of “Smoke on the Water” together at some park. The book is constantly inspiring fools everywhere to attempt worthless, pointless stunts of stupidity that neither impress anyone nor make the world a better place in any way, shape or form. For the latest example of this phenomenon, meet Canton, Conn. resident Ed Jarrett, who has broken his own record for the world's tallest sandcastle. The enablers from the GBOWR have certified the monument to loserdom after Jarrett and a team of more than 1,500 volunteers built a 37-foot, 10-inch medieval-style castle at Winding Trails in Farmington with 1.6 million pounds of sand and water. If you haven’t seen pictures of it yet, look to the left side of this page and shake your head in disgust with everyone else. Jarrett has been living out his loserly ways with sand castles since 2003, when he first claimed the record for the tallest sandcastle with a 29-foot structure. Not satisfied with embarrassing himself, his family and anyone who had ever known him he then broke his own record in 2007 with a 31-foot, 6-inch sandcastle before setting out to build one taller than 35 feet. Yes, the goal was raising money for charity, but if the charity in question has any self-respect, it will turn that donation down and insist that only people who are not flaming idiots and who are not making the world a more ridiculous place contribute to their worthy efforts on behalf of whatever underprivileged, abused, neglected or ill group they help………….
- Maybe, just maybe, the damage caused by a heart attack isn't permanent after all. A new study published in the journal Nature found that a drug called thymosin beta 4, if used in advance of a heart attack, was able to "prime" the heart for repair. While cautioning that any treatment in humans was years away the British Heart Foundation (not to be confused with the legendary professional wrestling group the Hart Foundation) described the discovery as the "holy grail of heart research." Overall, advances in health care are decreasing the number of people dying from coronary heart disease. However, the number of people living with heart failure is on the rise - more than 750,000 people suffering from the condition in the UK alone. Researchers at University College London examined a small group of cells which are able to transform into different types of heart tissue in an embryo. In adults, there epicardium-derived progenitor cells line the heart but live in a dormant state. Using thymosin beta 4, the researchers were able to "wake them up.” Professor Paul Riley of the University College London, said: "The adult epicardial cells which line the muscle of the heart can be activated, move inward and give rise to new heart muscle. We saw an improvement in the ejection fraction, in the ability of the heart to pump out blood, of 25 percent." After being revived and pumping more blood, the hearts in the study also saw a reduction in scar tissue and a thickening of their walls. On a cautionary note, much greater improvement was seen in animals than in human heart tissue, but even a small improvement in heart function could have a significant impact on a person’s quality of life. The mice in the study needed to take the drug in advance of a heart attack in order for it to be effective, illustrating the so-called “priming effect” of the chemical. If a drug is ever developed for use in human patients, the researchers believe it would need to be prescribed in a similar way to statins. "I could envisage a patient known to be at risk of a heart attack - either because of family history or warning signs spotted by their GP - taking an oral tablet, which would prime their heart so that if they had a heart attack the damage could be repaired," Riley said, theorizing that such a medicine could be available within 10 years. Regardless, the study provides further evidence that drugs could be used to prevent the onset of heart failure, according to the researchers. In related news, in about 10 years you can look forward to commercials pushing a thymosin beta 4-based pill alongside the crank-enhancer pills hawked relentlessly during every televised sporting event…………
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