- Last one out of Boston, turn the lights out. After an epic meltdown that may never be matched in Major League Baseball history, those responsible for putting the team behind that collapse together are trampling each other on their way out the door. First, Red Sox manager Terry Francona asked the team not to pick up his contract option for next season because he felt he could no longer reach his players. Francona bowed out last week and this week, it could be general manager Theo Epstein who exits stage left. Epstein, responsible for constructing the roster that self-destructed and blew a nine-game lead over Tampa Bay for the American League wild card in the month of September, is a “50-50” bet to leave the Red Sox in the event another club comes calling, according to a source close to the situation. The source said Epstein doesn’t see his current job as one he wants long term and the possibility to make the leap to the Chicago Cubs could be too enticing to turn down if the Cubs make an offer. The Cubs are where the Red Sox were prior to Epstein’s arrival in 2003, not having won a World Series in decades. It had only been 85 years for the Red Sox and it has currently been 103 years for the Cubs, but Epstein would be deified if he could lead the Cubs to a title. He won two in Boston, but Red Sox ownership has been ambiguous about their plans for their GM’s future in Boston. CEO Larry Lucchino would say only that Epstein was still under contract. Epstein’s has reportedly told those close to him he feels obligated to honor his contract, but could the team’s total collapse alter his thinking? He is beginning his 10th season with the Red Sox and at some point, it may come time for a fresh start. The Cubs would be a viable option because they are one of a handful of teams in baseball with pockets as deep as the Red Sox. Also, being the guy who orchestrated championships for two title-starved fan bases would make Epstein a baseball legend. To sweeten the offer, the Cubs could also offer Epstein the club presidency, a position that is not available to Epstein at the Red Sox as long as currrent president Larry Lucchino is in place. Should he want more fun in the sun and less dreary East Coast/Midwest days, Epstein could also land in Anaheim, where the Angels recently announced that they were parting ways with GM Tony Reagins. These are the sorts of questions that are raised when a team comes from ahead to tank in historic fashion in the space of a single month…………
- Salt Lake City resident and newly single dude Nathan Wright is either a brilliant thinker, a pathetic and desperate loser……or some hybrid of the two. Like many people across the United States, Wright is in search of love. He recently got divorced after a 15-year marriage and rather than sit around and lament his fate, Wright is getting right back out into the dating world. But unlike the cyber-losers seeking romance on Match.com or eharmony.com, Wright is running his show and not relying on Dr. Neil Clark Warren for answers in his love life. Instead, Wright has launched his own website to find dates and soulmates. He created DateNate.com to conduct the search and is counting on the public - or at least those with nothing better to do than cast votes to determine the dating habits of total strangers - to help him out. The basic concept of the site is to have girls interested in dating Wright post a photo and a profile. Site visitors will then vote on the competitors and the “winner” gets to go on a date with Wright. What has the response been to the site so far? "Women respond to the site a lot differently than guys. Women are on a mission. They've gotta get Nate the right date. They're on a mission. They're looking at the profiles of the applicants and trying to figure out who I'm best suited with. Guys think it's dumb," Wright said. Dumb or not, more than 70,000 votes were cast in the site’s first contest and the women who entered seemed resigned to the idea that Internet dating is the new wave of finding love. "The internet killed dating. At least traditional dating," said entrant Anmaree Osmond. Osmond found out about Wright’s gimmick on Facebook and decided to enter, even though she has reservations because she doesn’t know Wright the way she typically likes to know her dates prior to going out. She may also have reservations once she realizes that Wright is serious about wearing a webcam during their date to broadcast the entire night live online. "I'm wearing a webcam, I want people to see from the beginning to end, the entire date," said Nate. "It will be archived and I will be posting it on the site so they can watch it throughout the week." Hmm, something tells me Wright is much more concerned with getting publicity and attention than he is with finding love. After all, how long does the camera stay on? If his date invites him up for a nightcap, does he broadcast that too? Oh, and there’s also the fact that regardless of how the date goes, Wright will start the entire process over with five new women the next week. On second thought, love has nothing to do with this at all…………
- Fox’s “Arrested Development” is one of those TV shows that has always received immense critical praise and built a definite cult following even if its ratings were never outstanding. The show, which aired from 2003-06, starred Jason Bateman, Michael Cera and Portia de Rossi as members of a dysfunctional family who ran a collapsing real estate development company and frozen banana stand. Fans have clamored for its return ever since it went off the air and after an "Arrested Development" reunion Sunday at the New Yorker Festival, those fans may be getting what they’ve been seeking. The show’s creators and cast announced plans for a new TV show that spins off the original concept and also discussed more concrete plans for a much-awaited movie. Creator Mitchell Hurwitz explained that the spinoff will feature nine or ten episodes focusing on each character and leading up to the movie. He even teased the first scene of the movie, which will reportedly feature all of the show’s main characters reunited. While the movie does not have a release date - that will happen when filming hasn’t even begun - shooting for the TV show is tentatively set to begin next summer. "We're all game," Hurwitz said. "We've hated being coy, but we've been trying to put together this ambitious idea." The idea certainly is ambitious, expecting fans to climb back on board for the revival of a show that ran for just three season and has been dormant for more than five years. But fans often show extreme loyalty to series they love and assuming all the business details can be worked out to allow the project to happen, don’t be surprised if “Arrested Development” come flocking back to both the spin-off show and the movie………….
- Thanks for the sunny prognostication, Texas state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon. Nielsen-Gammon is the naysayer who garnered plenty of headlines late last week when he piled on Texas’ current drought problems by predicting that the rainfall shortage could last all the way to 2020. The last thing Texas needed was someone else dumping more bad environmental news on it, what with the unusually dry conditions this year causing an estimated $5.2 billion in damages to the state's agriculture sector. Scientists typically don’t forecast drought years in advance, so Nielsen-Gammon’s predictions are especially noteworthy. Even the federal government only forecasts drought outlooks for a few months into the future, but Nielsen-Gammon seems to believe he is simply far wiser than the rest of the scientific community. He is, after all, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University. He does concede that predicting drought conditions is more of an art than a science, but points to a lot of similarities between conditions now and the worst recorded drought in Texas history, which lasted from 1950 to 1957. Much of the blame for the current drought has been assigned to La Niña, a weather phenomenon signaled by unusually cool surface waters in the tropical Pacific Ocean. "Drought in the southern Great Plains tend to be very much linked to La Niña conditions," said Siegfried Schubert, a senior research scientist in the Global Modeling and Simulation Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "But there are issues of times when the drought will persist longer than La Niña conditions, and there are questions about what other oceans perhaps are playing a role." A new La Niña is reportedly on the way, paving the way for another dry winter in the Lone Star state. Nielsen-Gammon believes that unusually warm surface waters in the tropical Atlantic Ocean could also exacerbate the problem, recreating the same conditions that factored heavily into the historic 1950s drought. Where others see surface water temperatures in the ocean, Nielsen-Gammon sees a byproduct of a long-term climate pattern. "Unfortunately, if you go back to that record [of the 1950s], it's pretty similar to what's going on right now," Nielsen-Gammon said. "That's the only time in the past 100 years when [the ocean conditions] had a similar configuration to how they are today." Texans will definitely be fired up to hear all of this as they remain mired in a year-old drought that as of the end of September was on the verge of breaking Texas' record, set in 1956, for the driest 12-month period. Nielsen-Gammon is receiving a fair amount of support from other climate experts who believe that the combination of cold tropical Pacific waters and warm tropical Atlantic waters is a potent recipe disaster in the southern Great Plains and northern Mexico. With no definitive way to predict how long the current La Niña will last, life could be very dry in Texas for a very long time. There is always the option of moving to Seattle…………
- Bad ideas are as contagious as illness and Canada is about to catch the flu that is “Occupy Wall Street.” As thousands of kooks protest at locations around New York City and don zombie suits while tweeting out their message of Wall Street ruining America’s financial system, Canadians are taking notice and drawing inspiration. Thus, Monday’s announcement by Canadian activists that they plan to organize anti-Wall Street protests inspired by the demonstrations in New York. Protests are reportedly planned in Toronto as well as several other Canadian cities and the aim will be the same: targeting corporate greed and other wrongs perpetrated upon the average man. Toronto, one of Canada’s financial nerve centers, will be rocked by a protest on Oct. 15 when demonstrators converge on the city’s financial district, according to the event’s website. The plan is to organize over the weekend and march first thing Monday morning when the Toronto Stock Exchange open. Activists in Vancouver have elected for a more cultural approach, seizing control of an area outside the Vancouver Art Gallery with participants advised to bring tents so they can stay "as long as it takes," according to the group's Facebook page. And yes, all of these people are claiming inspiration by a group of people who thought the best method for getting their message out was rocking zombie costumes and attempting to confront Wall Street workers and executives as they showed up for work Monday morning. Taking a step back and examining the entire scene with a dose of objectivity, the spirit spreading across North America seems to be equal parts anger, indignation…..and stupidity…………
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