- Get the f*ck off the gravy train, customers at New York City Starbucks locations. Just because the overpriced coffee shop offers free Wi-Fi doesn’t mean you can lug your wireless printer, portable speakers, files and other work-at-home items down to the nearest location along with your laptop and run your business from the corner table with the nice view. Belive it or not, some people come into Starbucks only to buy coffee and muffins (and possibly a crappy mix tape CD) and hang out for a few minutes while they eat and drink. Those people want somewhere to sit and leeches who try to set up their entire small business in the coffee shop are taking up space for hours on end. Managers of NYC Starbucks have heard the complaints of those seatless patrons and they have come up with a plan to dislodge the moochers. Effectively immediately, some of the busier Manhattan Starbucks will block their electrical outlets to discourage laptop users from hogging space and to free up seats for other customers. "Customers are asking (for it) .... They just purchased a latte and a pastry and there is nowhere to sit down in some of these really high-volume stores," said Starbucks spokesman Alan Hilowitz. The decision on blocking outlets will be made on a case-by-case basis by individual stores and thus far is a phenomenon limited to New York City, where 6 million people are sharing a far-too-small island and have little patience for inconveniences like no place to drink their $6.75 grande mocha latte with extra foam. "If this is what the store needs to do to support the business, then they're allowed to make the decision to do that," Hilowitz said. "It really is all about the balance." Free Wi-Fi will still be offered for those who patronize Starbucks and for those with newer laptops sporting longer battery life, the outlet ban won't be much of an issue. For everyone else, it’s time to find a new office space, perhaps even a real office…………
- Stunning news comes today from the world of basic cable, where the late-night juggernaut that is The George Lopez Show has bombed out so abysmally that TBS is pulling the plug, effective immediately. The network announced Wednesday that the show’s final episode will air Thursday, bringing the show’s run to a close after two seasons. Part of the problem for Lopez, aside from competing with the likes of Jay Leno, Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart and David Letterman, may have been moving from the 11 p.m. time slot in its first season to midnight for its second season after Conan O'Brien joined the network to much fanfare. The premise was O’Brien providing a nice ratings boost for Lopez, driving up viewership and making TBS a valid late-night destination. That never materialized, as Lopez’s ratings dropped 40 percent after the change. Since the time swap, Lopez’s ratings have hovered around 0.2, with 400,000 viewers. The time change is undoubtedly part of the problem, but O’Brien’s own nosediving ratings probably did not help. On Monday, O’Brien pulled in an anemic 0.5 rating in the key demographic (ages 18-49) with 715,000 viewers. Those are not the numbers TBS had in mind when it inked O’Brien to a massive deal following his own controversial departure from NBC and promoted his show out the wazoo as he crisscrossed the nation on a comedy tour and tweeted up his new show to the point of oversaturation. Now, O’Brien and midnight airings of whatever syndicated drama TBS will use to fill Lopez’s slot can hold down late nights on TBS, but if O’Brien can’t reverse his own awful ratings, he could soon find himself headed out the door right behind his boy Lopez………
- What sort of fun does once encounter at the hands of China’s repressive communist government as a brave dissident? If you guessed being interrogated more than 50 times during your unjust incarceration and threatened with up to 10 years in jail for inciting subversion, then you’re correct! At least those are the facts being reported about the detainment and treatment of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei , who was released in June amid international outcry over his 81-day detention. Police reportedly subjected him to 50 brutal interrogations, although state media said he was held for economic crimes and released "because of his good attitude in confessing" and a chronic illness, along with agreeing to pay back taxes he had evaded. Anonymous sources claimed the questioning during Ai’s interrogation focused on the proposed "Jasmine Revolution" protests in China in February and writings that could constitute subversion. He was questioned about blog posts and his Twitter feed "line by line.” Those claims line up perfectly with Ai’s family’s contention that his detention was retaliation for his social and political activism. He was one of many dissidents and activists caught up in a massive crackdown apparently triggered by the anonymous call on an overseas website for "Jasmine" protests inspired by the Arab spring. Police interrogators wanted to know if Ai knew who the organizers of the "Jasmine" protests were. He denied any knowledge of them, which seems sensible because the protest call was largely ignored in China. Details of Ai’s whereabouts and condition were nonexistent after plainclothes officers stopped him on April 3 at Beijing Airport and quickly whisked him off into an unmarked car, which transported him to an undisclosed location where he was kept for two weeks. From there, Ai was moved to another location where two officers watched him round the clock, going so far as to monitor him as he slept and insist he put his hands on top of the blanket. The same anonymous source claimed that while in detainment, Ai was not allowed to speak and had to request permission to drink water and use the toilet. When he boldly informed told police their actions were illegal, officers reportedly responded with cryptic remarks about former Chinese leader Liu Shaoqi, who died during the brutal political turmoil which Mao Zedong unleashed in the 1960s. Even on the day he was released, Ai was not-so-subtly reminded he could still face 10 years in jail for inciting subversion to state power and he was forced to agree to conditions including no media interviews, no meetings with foreigners, no use of the Internet and no interaction with human rights advocates for one year from his return home. Sounds like an open invitation to flee the country for greener, less oppressive pastures…………
- Curious links are common in science, where new research and discoveries are consistently flipping the world as we thought we knew it upside down. A new study published in the most recent issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association seems to do just that by suggesting that people who have sleep apnea are twice as likely to develop dementia. The study ties in well with sleep experts' long-suspected belief that sleep apnea, a.k.a. sleep-disordered breathing, can deprive the brain of oxygen and thus cause declines in cognitive ability. "This is the first study to show that sleep apnea MAY lead to cognitive impairment," study leader Dr. Kristine Yaffe, professor of psychiatry, neurology and epidemiology at the University of California at San Francisco, said in a written statement. "It suggests that there is a biological connection between sleep and cognition." For some odd reason, the study included only women. Researchers monitored the cognitive ability of 298 women over the age of 65, none of whom had been demented when tested five years previously. They discovered that 32.5 percent of the women had dementia or mild cognitive impairment - with the risk for cognitive impairment almost twice as high in those who had sleep apnea. Despite only studying men, Yaffe and her team believe their results would likely apply to men as well. As alarming as the idea of a sleep disorder one has little control over causing something as terrible as dementia, Yaffe did offer some hope by postulating that getting treated for apnea might help prevent or delay the onset of dementia. For the medically ignorant, sleep apnea is a chronic condition in which the collapse of fleshy tissue in the throat blocks the flow of oxygen during sleep. It is easily recognizable by symptoms that include loud snoring, choking or gasping during sleep, and daytime sleepiness. Treatments can often be intrusive, including the common option of wearing an oxygen mask during sleep. Masks tend to be extremely uncomfortable and as many as half of patients eventually stop wearing it. However, if the option is the mask or a higher risk of dementia……………
- Athletes who are about to become free agents are wise to not say or do anything that might harm their market value. Offending, disrespecting or dismissing a potential suitor or the city in which that team plays could well hurt the athlete’s value on the open market, so saying politically correct, nice things about teams and cities one has no intention in hell of ever playing for or in is the typical M.O. Texas Rangers pitcher C.J. Wilson either didn’t get that memo or simply doesn’t give a sh*t, because he has already scratched one potential free agent destination off his list and done so with emphasis. As the Rangers ready for a weekend series with the AL West rival Oakland A’s, Wilson made it infinitely clear how he feels about Oakland and its baseball team. "I hate pitching there. The mound sucks, the fans suck. There's no fans there," Wilson said in response to a question about the ample foul territory at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. "It's too bad because the fans that are there are really adamant and they're really stoked on the team and they play drums and they wave flags and that's cool. But, you know, some games you go there and there's like 6,000 people there. It's kind of sad because it's a major league team and there's guys out there that are obviously pretty good players -- guys like (Trevor) Cahill and Gio Gonzalez, obviously they are All-Star pitchers -- and I just wish that the fan base supported them a little bit more." Wow……the mound sucks, the fans suck…..don’t you want to insult their women as well, maybe talk a little junk about how vapid Californians are and how their air is smog-ridden? Maybe get in a good blast on being San Francisco’s ugly little brother of a city? Wilson should get quite a welcome when he starts the series opener in Oakland on Friday, especially after he said the home fans in Arlington make it preferable for him to pitch in the sweltering heat of North Texas than the mild climates of Northern California. "I'd rather pitch here than in Oakland. I like the fans here a lot better, so you don't have to worry about me signing there after the season," Wilson said. "They hate me there anyways so it doesn't matter. The players on their team hate me, whatever; I don't care." He is also well aware that many A’s players don’t like him and he doesn’t give a damn about that either. "It's true, dudes on their team don't like me, I get it," Wilson stated. "We're rivals. We're trying to beat them. When I was here in '05 and the Angels beat us we didn't like that. (The A's) had to watch us celebrate on the field last year; they're not going to like that. I'm sure they think that. Whatever motivates you. I think that about other players on other teams.” Enjoy your visit to Oakland, C.J. - assuming that’s even possible for you…………
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