- New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski on Friday finally got around to addressing the criticism of his work ethic and dedication to his team that arose in the wake of his post-Super Bowl dance party at an Indianapolis club hours after the Pats’ 21-17 loss. The man known simply as Gronk showed up at the club and got his dance on despite an ankle injury that eventually required surgery and has him in a cast and on crutches. He suffered the injury in the AFC Championship game two weeks prior to the Super Bowl but suited up and played against the Giants, registering just two catches for 26 yards. When the video of him getting his dance on to LMFAO’s “Party Rock Anthem” went viral, Gronk took heat from media members and former players, including former Patriot Rodney Harrison. However, these critics focused on the wrong aspect of the drama. Instead of apologizing for being at the club and dancing, what Gronk should really apologize for is his dancing. Anyone who has seen the video will understand that, as dude looks like a marlin hooked on the end of some fisherman’s line off the coast in Key West, jerking around and spazzing like he’s trying to wriggle off the line. But rather than apologize for his horrible dancing, Gronk explained why he went to the club. "Hard work and dedication, I always put my job first before anything, no matter what it is. I'm always just dedicating myself. Unfortunately, it just happened like that. I mean, it is what it is," he said in his first public comments on the incident. "I have a lot of fun with my family. It was the first time I got to see them in a while. We were just having fun with my brothers and stuff, friends I hadn't seen in a while. The chance to hang out with [the band] LMFAO, that was pretty cool, too. Unfortunately we didn't win and that was the number one goal. That's all we did, was work, for the two weeks from the Baltimore game to the Giants game, just to keep on grinding. I was in the training room 24/7 getting healthy. Same with everybody else. Fortunately we just came up short." Still waiting for that apology on your eye-assaultingly bad dance moves, Gronk………..
- Who knew the black market for bath salts in Arizona existed or would have believed it to be such a sinister world? In September, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration issued a one-year ban on possessing and selling three chemicals commonly used to produce bath salts and announced plans to study whether the chemicals should be permanently banned. Arizona followed suit and made bath salts, a synthetic drug that has been known to cause symptoms like hallucinations and medical distress, illegal. Why folks can't just use their bath salts, take a soak and enjoy some quality hallucinations is a mystery, especially since it’s cheaper and easier than trying to track down some quality LSD or PCP. Regardless, bath salts were once legal in Arizona and now they’re not. That became a problem for stores that sold them when they were legal because a) they had stockpiles of bath salts they could not sell any longer and b) they lost a significant chunk of their business from tweakers, er, bath salt users. Thus, a few stores continued to sell them even though hey were illegal. The squares who work in the law enforcement field in Prescott, Ariz. Didn’t like that and as a result, two Prescott Valley businesses and three Prescott businesses were raided Thursday for selling bath salts. Police confirmed all five businesses sold bath salts while they were still legal under state law but continued to sell them after the product was deemed illegal and in some cases, sold the salts literally out of their back door. An investigation ensued, search warrants were issued and served and on Thursday, X-Hale Smoke Shop, Mario's Mexican Market, Quick Stop, C-Stop and Mike's Mini Mart were raided. Several individuals were arrested, two handguns were seized and these good people will now face criminal charges as possession of a bath salt is a class 4 felony and its sale is a class 2 felony………….
- For centuries, the mystery of the Mayan civilization’s collapse has riddled the world. What was powerful enough to wipe out one of history’s greatest civilizations? Plague? Disease? Not according to a group of Mexican and British researchers. They believe relatively mild drought conditions may have been enough to cause the collapse of the Mayan civilization, which flourished until about 950 AD in what is now southern Mexico and Guatemala. Some anthropologists have theorized that severe drought played a heavy role in the collapse, but scientists from the Yucatan Centre for Scientific Research in southern Mexico and the University of Southampton believe a sustained drop in rainfall of only 25-40 percent was enough to drain seasonal water supplies in the region and kill off the Mayans. The joint research team used advanced modeling techniques to estimate rainfall and evaporation rates between 800 and 950 AD, when the Mayan civilization went into a fatal decline. Their projections demonstrated that a small decline in rainfall was enough to deplete freshwater storage systems in the Yucatan lowlands, where there are no rivers. Reducing rainfall by 25 to 40 percent was enough for evaporation to become dominant over rainfall and “open water was rapidly reduced," said professor Eelco Rohling of Southampton University. "Societal disruptions and abandonment of cities are likely consequences of critical water shortages, especially because there seems to have been a rapid repetition of multi-year droughts.” The projections have relevance in modern times because some climate experts predict a similar rainfall pattern for the region in the near future. "There are differences too, but the warning is clear - what seems like a minor reduction in water availability may lead to important, long-lasting problems," professor Martin Medina-Elizalde said. "The problem is not unique to the Yucatan Peninsula, but applies to all regions in similar settings where evaporation is high.” This time, there is no civilization renowned for its sophisticated architecture, mathematics and culture that would be wiped out, but it’s always best to be prepared for drought regardless……….
- They have been accused of being two of the most arrogant men in all of rock and roll, so maybe it’s fitting that Noel Gallagher could "easily be playing" on the next Coldplay album, according to a roadie for Coldplay who posted recently on the band’s website. A blog post that appeared this week revealed that Gallagher, now fronting Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, gave Martin a recording of a guitar loop he had been playing during the pair's rehearsal for their Brit Awards duet earlier this week. Regarding the jam session, the roadie wrote: “Noel stamps on a pedal and starts off a loop of glorious noise. Immediately Chris is on his feet and shouting 'What the hell is that?'. Chris has his iPhone out to record it, excitedly proclaiming it the most amazing thing he's ever heard. Noel is laughing as the pedal loops away through the stack.” The day of the show, Martin gave the pedal to the roadie and related a conversation in which Gallagher called Martin to his dressing room and passed along the loop. The roadie, whose name is not revealed by the post, claimed that Martin had asked him to record what was in the pedal so it could be used in the studio. It could well be Martin or another member of the band playing a bit of a joke, but the collaboration sounds realistic and the odds of Gallagher feeding his immense ego by doing a guest spot on the next Coldplay album makes perfect sense. At the Brit Awards, the two seemed very comfortable doing a duet of Gallagher’s track “AKA… What A Life.” And yes, Gallagher still hates his brother and former Oasis bandmate Liam………
- Now THIS is how politics should work. Filibusters and pork-barrel legislation are the sort of garbage the average constituent neither wants nor needs. They vote for a person they want to go and fight for their interests in their state or national legislature and are forced to look on as that elected representative does very little fighting and plenty of slacking. Don’t count British lawmaker Eric Joyce in that group. Joyce, a member representing Falkirk, near Edinburgh in Scotland, in the House of Commons, is willing to fight for what he believes in – literally. Seems Joyce was hanging out at a House of Commons bar Wednesday around 11 p.m. with some of his peers when the evening became chaotic. The reason for the fight, according to news reports, was one of Joyce's companions (presumably drunk, as they were a Brit in a bar at 11 p.m.) singing loudly and becoming aggressive toward Conservatives in the bar. Another account had Joyce stealing a Conservative lawmaker's seat when the man went to the bar and swearing at the man when asked to move. Or it could be that Joyce was fighting on behalf of those who elected him over a very important social issue, which sounds much better and more noble. A witness characterized the scene as less of a bar brawl and more of Joyce “just flipping out and lashing out.” In other words, it was a one-sided fight in which he did a lot of ass-kicking, right? Strangers Bar was the scene of Joyce punching several Conservative lawmakers and their staffers, end of story. Well, that and Joyce allegedly heat-butting Conservative lawmaker Stuart Andrew as police officers called to the scene looked on. Police eventually restrained Joyce and interviewed staff and lawmakers who were present during the incident. Joyce has already been suspended by the opposition Labour Party until the investigation is completed, which is sad because if more legislators showed the passion and fight he displayed in that bar, politics would be a better (and bloodier) place. Heck, Joyce even added some property damage to his list of (alleged) crimes by smashing a window as he was led away into custody. To understand how awesome his night was, just know that officers had to wait 13 hours for him to sober up for questioning. Oh, and no credit to Commons Speaker John Bercow for calling on lawmakers not to discuss the "serious incident" in Parliament. Wrong move, Bercow. Play this up, maybe set up a cage match for Joyce to settle the score with his foes, get some mileage out of this one…………
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