- Firecrackers and intelligence are rarely synonymous. Those who love and heavily use firecrackers are virtually never leading candidates for Mensa membership. Even when a government runs a large scare campaign to discourage its people from using firecrackers and other similar devices to celebrate the arrival of a new year, people are bound to go bonehead. The scene in Manila, Philippines Saturday night and into Sunday morning should come as a surprise to no one. Even after the government did its best to play Big Brother and warned about the danger of firecrackers (especially in the hands of morons), firecrackers and gunfire injured nearly 500 people in the Philippines during one of the world’s rowdiest New Year’s celebrations. The firecracker smog from the celebrations in downtown Manila and surrounding areas was so severe that about a dozen flights, including two from the United States, were diverted or canceled early Sunday due to obscured visibility. Health Secretary Enrique Ona confirmed 472 injuries - 454 from firecracker blasts and 18 from stray bullets - a number that was actually slightly lower than last year but still enough to fill hospital emergency rooms in the capital shortly after midnight. To add another thrilling level to the chaos, members of two rival gangs battled it out in front of Manila's main government hospital attending to the injured, leaving one man dead from a gunshot wound. "Again, it seems our appeal to mothers to keep their children away from firecrackers wasn't effective," Ona said at a news conference. True, but sound logic has no chance when matched up against a belief rooted in Chinese tradition that noisy New Year's celebrations drive away evil and misfortune. Even threats of arrest were not enough to discourage gunfire and massive firecrackers. Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo said at least 65 people were arrested for using illegally large firecrackers, leading Ona to admit he would consider a proposal for a total ban on firecrackers but that it needed to be studied. Congrats to anyone who survived New Year’s Eve unscathed in the Philippines……………
- Not everyone can afford an iPhone 4S. For those who can't and must settle for an Android phone, the increasingly popular Siri voice controlled virtual assistant of the iPhone 4S is out of reach……or is it? Android users may not be able to ask important questions about navigation, weather or their daily schedule to Siri, but maybe someone can come up with an alternative, a Siri knockoff if you will. Sure enough, there are several Siri imitators in the Android Market. On closer examination, however, those imitators are actually giant frauds. One is new app called ‘Siri for Android', which is nothing more than a shortcut for Google's Voice service. The service comes pre-installed on Android devices, so the shortcut is nothing more than a clever hoax. The app’s icon is a copy of Siri’s own icon and ‘Siri for Android’ comes from by a developer called ‘Official App,’ which easily confuses easily confusable people into believing that they are downloading an official app released by Apple. So far, the faux Siri app has been downloaded more than 1,000 times since it was discovered. Another Siri knock-off, Speerit, touts itself as itself the ‘real' Siri for Android but is currently available only in Korean. Those who don’t speak for Korean just have to hope promises from the app’s creator of an English-speaking version come true soon. Other app makers have taken a more tongue-in-cheek approach, with Fake Siri for Android praising praises Android every time people on a button but not taking any actual voice commands. Those not wishing to waste their time with Siri knockoffs can simply slog along with Google Voice until the online search titan offers a legit rival for Siri……….
- Dead birds are becoming an unwelcome trend in the small town of Beebe, Ark. For the second straight year, birds fell from the sky at the start of the new year in Beebe and authorities believe they have an explanation this time around. With 200 or more dead blackbirds littering the streets Sunday, state wildlife officials quickly attempted an explanation for the occurrence. "We know that there was evidence of fireworks set off in the middle of the roost, and it wasn't a coincidence," said spokeswoman Genny Porter of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. The scale of the bird-pocalypse was much smaller than last year, when 4,000 bird fell to the ground and sparked a nationwide media frenzy complete with apocalyptic prophesies and wild theories. Although no official explanation was ever offered for last year’s incident, most scientists agreed the birds were spooked by fireworks and flew into buildings, trees and each other. Following last year’s avian mortality surge, police in Beebe pushed rushed through an emergency ban on fireworks in a bid to avoid a repeat of the issue. That ban failed miserably, as evidenced by the 400 dead birds that began falling to fall to the ground around 7:00 p.m. Saturday. As was to be expected, police quickly threatened criminal charges if suspects can be identified……….
- There are plenty of reasons to be upset after a Cee Lo Green musical performance, not the least of which is that you just spent four or five minutes listening to Cee Lo Green sing. That’s not why people are angry at the “The Voice Karaoke” judge and sometimes recording artist following his performance of John Lennon's "Imagine" in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. “Imagine” is obviously an iconic song familiar across generations and one of the song’s best-known lines is, "Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too." Clearly not a fan of the idea of a world without religion, Green instead sang, "Nothing to kill or die for, and all religion's true." Removing Lennon’s atheistic sentiments from the song infuriated many viewers of the broadcast, who took to Twitter to excoriate Green for ruining a song, Rolling Stone named No.3 on the list of the its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, calling it "an enduring hymn of solace and promise that has carried us through extreme grief, from the shock of Lennon's own death in 1980 to the unspeakable horror of Sept. 11.” Green tweeted out an explanation of his alteration, saying ""Yo I meant no disrespect by changing the lyric guys! I was trying to say a world were u could believe what u wanted that's all." That explanation did not go over well, as evidenced by the fact that it has since been deleted from Green’s Twitter feed. Some quasi-famous faces were among the angry masses, with comic Colin Quinn tweeting, "Cee Lo covered Imagine but at least he 'cleaned it up a little.' I did the same thing when I changed NWA to 'N-word' WA." Actor Michael McKean was more direct, playing on the title of one of Green's own songs. "Dear Cee Lo: Forget you," McKean tweeted. A few Twitter users actually focused their rage in the right direction, taking issue with the fact that Green's version of the famed song was poorly sung. Others cited the hypocrisy of Green singing a song with lyrics including "imagine no possessions" and "no need for greed or hunger" while attired in a sweet full-length fur coat and jewels……………
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