- Another weekend, another blow dealt to the average, friendly neighborhood coke, pot or heroin addict. This time, it is the Mexican military doing the dirty deed by discovering a so-called "narco-tunnel" in Baja California that extends under the U.S. border and would have been used to smuggle valuable, in-demand drugs into the United States for potheads, coke heads and other junkies. The tunnel, unfinished and destined to remain so now that it has been discovered and those working on it have been apprehended, is 977 feet long, more than six feet high and three feet wide. Unfortunately, all of the hard work put into making this tunnel a success will go for naught after ten people, including one woman, were arrested Friday as they carried out excavation work, Mexican military officials confirmed. Additionally, the buzz kills who shut the operation down also confiscated all of the tools from the site. Seeing the tunnel go to waste is a major bummer, especially with its functional lighting and ventilation systems. Work is believed to have been going on for more than a year and at the time it was abruptly halted, the tunnel had reached to within 328 feet from the U.S. border. Odds are it would have gone unnoticed had a d-bag resident in the border city of Tijuana not ratted out those building the tunnel. Mexican news reports have the tunnel originating in a ground floor room of a house in Tijuana. Baja California, despite its name, is located in Mexico and neighbors California, making it an ideal place to construct a secret underground tunnel through which to smuggle tens of millions of dollars in illegal drugs into another country…………
- Life for cell phone maker Research in Motion (RIM) and its BlackBerry PlayBook tablet is not nearly as pleasant at the company thought it would be. Sales are not nearly as plentiful as expected (perhaps because RIM waited about three years too long to enter the tablet market) and another big blow came Friday when Sprint announced that it will not be selling a 4G version of the PlayBook on its Wi-Max network. “We apologize for any inconvenience but the BlackBerry 4G PlayBook Tablet that was announced in January for summer availability will no longer be coming to the Sprint network,” Sprint confirmed in a statement. “This was a mutual decision between Sprint and RIM.” As AT&T and Verizon do not currently support the PlayBook on their networks, the PlayBook is a wireless device without carrier support and RIM can only sell a Wi-Fi version of its product. The only carrier support the PlayBook does have is AT&T July promise to support the PlayBook’s “bridge” application, which is necessary for users to access e-mail and calendar functions. The device must now be paired with a Blackberry phone in order to access a carrier’s 3G network. That isn't likely to sit well with customers who believed RIM’s promise that 3G and 4G models were in the works. The only voice speaking out in favor of Research in Motion is…..well…..Research in Motion. “RIM has decided to prioritize and focus its 4G development resources on LTE,” a RIM spokeswoman said in an official statement. In other words, RIM wants to paint itself as the one pulling the plug on its partnership with Sprint and its 4G network based on Wi-Max technology, a competitor of AT&T’s and Verizon’s LTE-based networks. Buying that line of corporate bullsh*t would be to ignore the underwhelming reaction the PlayBook has received from the tech world. Among its noted shortcomings are difficulties displaying Flash animations, which delayed the device’s initial launch a month. The official company line from RIM was a release of the device on the three largest U.S. carriers - Verizon, AT&T and Sprint - but none of the three came to pass. Meanwhile, RIM can look into the next lane on the track in the tablet race and see Apple’s highly successful iPad kicking ass with reported sales of approximately 9.3 million units in the first quarter of 2011, during which time the Wi-Fi-only PlayBook shipped 500,000 units…………
- How can one tell there are no good movies making their debut in theaters for a given weekend? When a returning movie about talking apes is tops at the box office for a second consecutive weekend, that’s how. Two weeks into its theatrical run, Rise of the Planet of the Apes was the king of the screen with $27.5 million, a 50-percent decline from its opening frame but enough to keep it ahead of newcomer The Help. The much-hyped drama/comedy made $25.5 million domestically in its debut and with a scant $35 million budget, it seems destined for a healthy profit margin. Fellow newbie Final Destination 5 cruised to $18.4 million simply by rehashing its predictable and tired plotline of killing lots of people in gruesome ways for a solid first weekend and a third-place finish. The Smurfs held relatively steady after its second-place effort one week ago, declining 35 percent and landing in fourth place with $13.5 million and $101.5 million in domestic earnings through three weeks. Capping the top five was its third newcomer for the week, the over-publicized “comedy” 30 Minutes or Less, led by Jesse Eisenberg. Its $13 million first weekend was so-so at best, but enough to prevent the film from being labeled a total bust. The top 10’s latter half was no more inspiring and its residents were: Cowboys & Aliens (dropping three spots to No. 6 with $7.6 million and $81,476,000 through three weeks), Captain America: The First Avenger (No. 7 with $7.1 and a very respectable $156.8 after one month of release), Crazy, Stupid, Love. (No. 8 with $6.9 and a three-week total of $55.4 million), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (No. 9 after making another $6.8 and having earned a robust $356.9 million domestically through five weeks) and the crap-tacular The Change-Up (bombing out and freefalling from No. 4 to No. 10 in its second weekend with $6.2 and a pathetic $25.7 million in domestic earnings thus far). Two films fell from the top 10 this weekend, as Horrible Bosses (No. 12) and Transformers: Dark of the Moon couldn’t quite hang tough enough……….
- He ate his way out of the NBA and now, portly center Eddy Curry is attempting to fight his way back in as the league slogs through its interminable lockout. The lockout is threatening to wipe out the entire 2011-12 season, which could give Curry extra time to shed some of the many extra pounds he’s currently carrying. He was reportedly in talks with several teams last season, including the Eastern Conference champion Miami Heat, but wasn’t appealing enough to any of those teams to sign. The Heat reportedly remain at the top of his wish list and to strike their fancy, Curry is working out diligently (that’s the rumor anyhow) with noted trainer Tim Grover in Chicago to lose weight and improve his conditioning. However, his weight loss has also shed some light on just how much Curry and those around him were fibbing when they said how much he weighed last season. When the official weight statements of active players were released last fall, Curry was listed at 295 lbs. No one actually believed that figure, but that was the word on the street. When speaking about Curry last week, Grover revealed that since the center’s workout with Miami in late June, he has lost another 28 pounds and is NOW at 300. So that “estimate” of 295 was likely 50 lbs. or so off the mark, but his skills “are there, no question,” Grover said. For whatever reason, Curry - also sporting a possibly life-threatening heart condition - intrigues Miami Heat general manager Pat Riley. The Heat could offer Curry a minimum deal if and when the lockout ever ends. but he would still need to get well south of the magical 300 mark to make that happen. Working out for five months and still being fatter than most Biggest Loser contestants could be discouraging, especially for a man who is/was supposedly a world-class athlete, but the prospect of having an NBA career again and a legit look at a championship just might be the motivation Curry needs to put down the Whoppers, Funjuns, Twinkies and deep-fried everything and keep battling……….
- For those occasions when humans forget that animals in zoos are still wild animals, there are happenings like this. A tour guide driver at the Lake Tobias Wildlife Park in Halifax Township, Pa. is currently recovering after being bitten by a Bengal tiger. The woman, who asked that her name be withheld from the media in consideration for her privacy, was bitten around 5 p.m. Thursday in a non-public area of the park. Don Federaff, Chief of the Halifax Ambulance Company, confirmed that the employee inexplicably climbed over a fence to get into an area that is restricted to the public's use and stuck her hand through the fence into the tiger’s cage. She was reportedly petting one tiger when another tiger, possibly jealous that it was not receiving attention, approached clamped its mouth down over her arm. When she attempted to pull her arm out of the cage, the angry tiger bit down and refused to let go. "She kept saying it was her fault and that it was an accident," said Halifax Fire Chief Bob Stout. Pretty much, Bob-O. It was this nut’s fault, 100 percent. It was definitely not an accident, but it was all her fault. Even if she was adamant that she had pet the animals hundreds of times before, that does not change the reality that THESE ARE WILD ANIMALS AND NOT PETS. They may be cool with you sticking your hand into their cage hundreds of times but the one time they decide it’s not all right and that your hand would make a tasty Thursday afternoon snack, it’s going to hurt and you just might go through the rest of your life sans one hand. In this case, the employee was flown to Hershey Medical Center via helicopter and she underwent surgery for her injuries. She was released from the hospital Friday and is recovering at home. Lake Tobias Wildlife Park issued a statement addressing the incident: “Surgery was performed on her injured arm and, with therapy, she is expected to regain complete use of her arm. Her concern at this time is for the park and the tiger, and expresses her regret for causing undue attention to the park and concern to the public.” One final thought: Perhaps while she is at home recuperating, the unidentified employee should read up on the portion of the park’s Web site that says Bengal tigers are known as one of nature's most feared predators and can kill animals over twice their size. That sort of information could prove very helpful in the right situation……………
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