- Is it just me, or have you noticed that pigeons have become much lazier of late? Paying attention to the exercise habits and overall level of activity for some of nature’s filthiest, most annoying creatures might seem odd, but it may also help explain the bizarre phenomenon currently occurring on a daily basis in Sweden’s largest city. Seems that a group of slacker pigeons have abandoned the method of transportation the good Lord blessed them with and now hitch daily rides across town on a subway car for their evening meal. Swedish transit authorities attempting to figure out how the pigeons came to waiting on the platform along with the subway’s human passengers, jumping on board and riding across the city to a local shopping center. They are also extremely conscientious, said Rasmus Sandsten, spokesman for underground operator MTR. "They behave well while on board and don't seem to be making much of a mess. They also choose to travel later in the day, cleverly avoiding rush hour," Sandsten said. According to Sandsten, these lazy pigeons birds "stand calmly at the platform and wait for the subway train to arrive. When it does they get on, travel one stop, jump off and then head for their favorite haunts." No one knows exactly where these lackadaisical birds live, but they board the subway in south Stockholm and ride to a local shopping center featuring numerous cafes and other sources of food. Amazingly, there have been no passenger complaints about the freeloaders and the pigeons have yet to take a dump on anyone. If they really want to be thoughtful, responsible travelers, then these bums should pick up loose change during the day as they fly around and use it to pay for a ticket instead of riding for free and taking up space that could be going to paying passengers………….
- The film may never live up to its name, but Immortals still ruled at the box office in its debut weekend and narrowly edged out Adam Sandler’s latest lame, lowest-common-denominator “comedy” for the win. Immortals garnered $32 million for a solid start, enough to best runner-up Jack and Jill, which secured that second-place finish with $26 million of its own in its debut. The top film for each of the last two weeks fell to third as Puss in Boots narrowly missed out on second place with a $25.5 million haul to cross over the $100 million mark domestically with $108.8 million and counting after three weeks. With its $130 million budget, a few more good weekends would definitely help in terms of profitability. The lame-rific Tower Heist chugged along in fourth place by suckering moviegoers into $13.2 million more of ticket sales and despite dropping off a solid 45 percent from last weekend, has somehow managed to make $43.9 million through two weeks. The third newcomer of the top five was Leonardo DiCaprio’s J. Edgar Hoover-themed flick J. Edgar, which was panned by many critics and didn’t fare well with movie fans. The film managed just $11.5 million and doesn’t look to have a long and prosperous box office run ahead of it. The five movies filling out the bottom half of the top 10 were: A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas (No. 6 and still incredibly bad, juvenile and idiotic with $5.9 million for a two-week tally of $23.2 million), In Time (No. 7 with $4.1 and $30.6 million in cumulative earnings), Paranormal Activity 3 (No. 8 with $3.6 and now over the $100 million mark domestically after four weeks at $100.8 million), the gawd-awful remake of Footloose (No. 9 with $2.7 million and a modest $48.8 million in five weeks of release) and the “Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em Robots” movie (Let’s make some moooonnnnnnneeeeyyyyyy!), a.k.a. Real Steel (No. 10 with $2 million and $81.7 million in cumulative earnings). Moneyball (No. 11), Courageous (No. 12) and The Ides of March (No. 13) all dropped out of the top 10 from last weekend…………
- Being the sort of loser who banks on winning the lottery as a means of changing their life is bad enough, but joining that with being one of the legions of tools who acted like 11:11:11 on Nov. 11 was going to be the best second of their lives simply because of a series of numbers? Now that is spectacularly lame. In related news, there are a lot of lame people in Michigan. No offense, Michiganders, but when so many of you were playing the daily lotto numbers 1111 for the Michigan Lottery’s Daily 4 drawing that the Michigan Lottery Commission feels the need to stop purchases of those numbers, there’s no other way to spin it. While the sale of the number combination 111 for the Daily 3 drawing were not halted, the commission claimed it had no choice but to stop anyone else from playing the 1111 combination on Friday. "The Lottery has a liability cap of $40 million on the Daily 4. Once the sales of a particular number reach the level that would require a $40 million payout if that number was drawn, sales for that number automatically stop. This ensures the Lottery can fulfill its primary mission, to generate revenue for the School Aid Fund," the commission said in a written statement. Some players who say they play the 1111 combination regularly complained after being told they could not do so Friday because so many “I believe in luck” losers had already done so. Just like everyone who goes to Vegas and thinks they’re going to win big because they “have a system,” every one of the losers who believed there was any sort of actual significance or luck in the 11-11-11 date and 11:11 a.m. or p.m. on that day ended up missing big on their lottery pick. Better luck next year on 12-12-12, tools……………
- The Marlins have to be the unquestioned favorite to win the 2012 World Series. The team may have won just 72 games, finished 30 games out of first place and last in the National League East this season, but all of that has gone out the window as the ‘Fins look forward to next year. Why? Have they pulled off a major trade for a superstar or found a way to completely overhaul a talent-deprived roster less than one month into the offseason? Nope and nope. That newfound fount of optimism comes from a ceremony held Friday ceremony at the team's new ballpark in Miami. Since the team’s creation as an expansion franchise in 1993, they have shared the oft-renamed multi-sport stadium currently known as Sun Life Stadium with the NFL’s Dolphins and of late, the Miami Hurricanes for college football. The cavernous stadium is not suited for baseball and despite winning two World Series during their short time in existence, the Marlins have struggled to draw even 15,000 fans for most home games over the past few seasons. The push for a new stadium finally succeeded a couple years ago and on Friday, the Marlins had a ceremony to open the venue and celebrate their move from a suburban multipurpose stadium where attendance was poor to a smaller ballpark near downtown where crowds of more than 30,000 are expected for every game next season. To top off the day’s excitement, the Marlins also officially changed their name from the Florida Marlins to the Miami Marlins, complete with a new logo, new uniforms and new colors -- orange, blue, black and yellow in place of the sea-foam green, black and silver that had adorned their gear since 1993. Star shortstop Hanley Ramirez was the first to take the stage with the new Marlins uniform on, emerging from backstage sporting a new home jersey with his arms raised as he basked in the adoration of the assembled masses. Pitcher . Josh Johnson modeled a black jersey with white pants, and Ricky Nolasco was next with an orange jersey and white pants. Loria, an art dealer himself, took credit for the uniforms’ design. When asked about the new color scheme and look, "Most of it was me." He chose the colors mindful of the ocean and South Florida's sunsets, he said. He also gave a nod to Miami’s Hispanic heritage and culture in speaking about the significance of the new ballpark. "If our ballpark could speak, its first words would be, 'Hola, Miami,'" Loria told 500 guests seated along the third-base line, wearing hard hats because the ballpark isn't quite complete. The day was a success and the fans had to feel appreciated…….right up to the point that the Marlins took a musical dump on their ears by “entertaining” them with a concert by hack-tastic Miami native and total poseur recording artist Pitbull to finish off the ceremony. Later in the day, at 11 p.m. on 11/11/11, long lines formed when the Marlins began selling new T-shirts, jerseys, caps and other accessories. And oh, by the way, the new colors and gear were created for that very purpose: making lots of money and not at all to tie in to the colors of the ocean and South Florida's sunsets…………
- Ladies, put down the Mountain Dew and Monster energy drinks. A five-year study led by one of your own, Christina Shay, lead author of the paper and an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, has revealed that women who drink sugary beverages every day may be raising their risk for heart disease even if their unhealthy drinking habits aren’t causing them to gain weight. No matter what sort of sugar-laden beverage is involved – pop, cappuccino, tea or energy drinks - women who drank two or more sweet beverages a day were at an increased risk for heart disease, even if they did not gain weight over the five-year study, according to the findings of the study. Shay presented those findings presented Sunday at the American Heart Association's meeting in Orlando, Fla. Other large studies in the past have linked drinking sugar-sweetened beverages to heart disease, but Shay and her team looked in a slightly different direction. "So we looked at its association with individual risk factors" for heart disease, Shay said. "Is it blood pressure, cholesterol, obesity? What is it specifically?" To answer those questions, she and her colleagues followed 4,166 people between the ages of 45 and 84 who were part of the larger Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis study. The research team discovered that that women with a sugary drinking habit developed high levels of triglycerides, which are a type of fat, but men did not, and that women who drank two or more sugary beverages per day were four times more likely to develop high triglyceride levels than women who drank fewer sugar-sweetened beverages. Worse still, women who drank more sugary beverages were also were more likely to develop abnormal levels of fasting glucose, a sign they could be developing diabetes. "These drinks may be influencing heart disease risk factors even if people don't gain weight," Shay said. With to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention latest figures showing an estimated 26.8 million Americans have heart disease, ranking it as the nation's number one killer, the findings of this new study are even more troubling. The average American consumes drinks 50 gallons of sweetened beverages a year, according to the California Department of Public Health, leading to higher triglyceride levels, lower good cholesterol and the body being compelled to make an especially damaging, smaller molecule of bad cholesterol. It is worth nothing that many of the women in the study did see saw expanding waistlines, even if they did not gain weight. That "belly fat" may have an especially negative effect on heart health, not to mention psychological well-being. The ultimate takeaway from this research is clearly that America is a FAT, unhealthy place full of people with terrible eating, drinking and exercise habits…………
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