- Totally not cool, Tampa Police Department, not cool. Some intrepid
(or simply forgetful) stoner lovingly planted a single marijuana plant in a
large city of Tampa planter, with irrigation and a direct line of sunlight,
that just happened to be located right across the street from police
headquarters. For weeks, the little pot plant grew unnoticed, hoping to fulfill
its destiny of being part of a larger collection of plants that would provide
ganja for the joints and bongs of many stoners. There it grew on the busy
corner of N. Franklin Street and Madison Street, right across the street from
the Tampa Police Department building. Police officers, legal professionals,
city cleaning crews and thousands of citizens passed right by and didn’t take
notice. It’s a surefire sign that not enough people stop to smell the hippie
lettuce in life and the plant may have kept on growing for a while longer had
bad Samaritan Justin Grimes and his brother not noticed it as they headed out
to lunch. "Right across from the police station," he said.
"Right in front of a drug pharmacy and with a Tampa cleanup crew walking
all around it for the last hour and a half. That’s pretty funny to me. Nobody
noticed it.” To be sure of what they had, Tampa police attempted to smoke the
plant….just kidding. Sadly, they did the obvious(ly) boring and tested the
plant. "The plant tested positive for THC," Tampa Police Capt. David
Goodman said. Tetrahydrocannabinol, as any good stoner knows, is the active
chemical in marijuana. In spite of its odd location, Goodman doesn’t believe a
creative stoner was looking to make a political statement by planting it. “I
don’t think anybody was trying to test our knowledge or see how much we were
appreciating the city’s beautification efforts,” Goodman said. He’s absolutely
correct because there is no way a pothead is wasting even one plant by planting
it in a public place to make a political statement. In a sad ending for the
brave plant, it will be destroyed and no criminal case will be opened. Because it
was only inches high, the plant was not mature enough to produce a usable
illegal drug and will never fulfill its destiny………..
- Try to get it right this time, Montreal Canadiens. The last time the province of Quebec’s sole NHL
team hired a head coach, the entire story devolved into a mud-slinging debacle
in which the city’s French-Canadian residents berated the team for hiring a
coach who did not speak French. That Randy Cunneyworth was only an interim head
coached promoted at midseason to replace the fired Jacques Martin made little
difference because his presence on the bench was deemed an affront by many
Quebec residents. Now that the Canadiens’ season is over and they have hired Chicago
Blackhawks assistant general manager and former NHL defenseman Marc Bergevin as
their new GM, he will inherit the task of hiring a new head coach. Bergevin
said during his introductory press conference Wednesday that he told
Cunneyworth that he'll return as an assistant coach for the time being and
won't keep his title as head coach. As if seeking to pander to angry
French-Canadians, team president Geoff Molson pointed out that Bergevin was
born in Montreal He also played 20 seasons in the NHL, and served as a former
scouting director, assistant coach and assistant GM. "We feel we have
selected an individual with the potential to lead our organization in the
future," Molson said. "We were looking for a candidate with very
strong leadership capability, great communication skills at all levels and
someone with a clear determination and commitment to winning." Blah, blah.
Blah. All angry Quebec residents want is to have a coach who can speak their
native tongue and lead them to something better than a dismal 31-35-16 season
and a last-place finish in the Eastern Conference………….
- Amazon may believe it has a real chance to compete in the
tablet/e-reader market, but mega-retailer Target clearly disagrees. The retail
chain announced Wednesday that it is phasing out Amazon.com Inc.’s e-reader Kindle
at its more than 1,700 stores and on its website. Target spokeswoman Molly
Snyder explained the decision, saying the company will no longer sell Kindles
in light of an “ongoing review” of Target’s merchandise that evaluates quality
and prices of the chain’s offerings. Coincidentally enough, the company just so
happens to create mini Apple shops in 25 of its stores across the country.
Apple’s iPad remains the dominant tablet on the market despite competition from
cheaper tablet computers such as Amazon’s Kindle Fire and the house that Steve
Jobs built has sold more than 55 million iPads since the tablet’s debut in
2010. For Target, its time as a Kindle retailer will be short-lived. The
Minneapolis-based company began selling Kindles two years ago and it was just
six month ago, shortly after Thanksgiving, that it announced that Amazon’s
Kindle was the best-selling tablet in its stores. Not only will Target stop
selling Kindles, but it will also stop selling Kindle accessories like covers
and chargers. Snyder did not want to comment on the obvious correlation between
Apple mini-shops and the cessation of Kindle sales, saying only, “We will continue
to offer our guests a full assortment of e-readers and supporting accessories.”
Amazon did not comment on the decision, with good reason as there is little the
online retailer could say that wouldn’t sound defeatist or outright delusional……….
- Is Robert Pattinson a versatile, talented actor? Hell no,
but he can try anyhow. Playing an über-pasty, hunky teen vampire may have
stretched his thespian skills well beyond their limits, but Pattinson is
undaunted and believes he can pull off the role of a U.S. army interrogator
who played a key role in pinpointing the hiding place of late Iraqi dictator
Saddam Hussein. Yes, the “Twilight” eye candy is set to play a military
investigator in a new psychological thriller, “Mission: Blacklist.” Besides
being a shameless rip-off of the “Mission: Impossible” concept (in name at
least), the movie clearly has some casting shortcomings. Pattinson will play
Eric Maddox in the film adaptation of the book written by author Davin Seay. “Mission:
Black List #1: The Inside Story of the Search for Saddam Hussein – As Told by
the Soldier Who Masterminded His Capture” is the hellaciously long title and
yet it might be less insufferable than seeing Pattinson trying to pull of his
new role. Maddox said when the book was first released that he believed the
story of how Hussein was captured was misunderstood and explained that he
interrogated more than 300 people to piece the puzzle together. For the
historically ignorant (or those with poor long-term memory), Hussein was
captured by U.S. forces on Dec. 13, 2003 in his hiding hole near a farmhouse in
ad-Dawr near Tikrit, Iraq. He was subsequently hanged for a conviction in f the
1982 killings of 148 Iraqi Shia. Now that Pattinson has completed work on the
final “Twilight” film and said he is unlikely to return to the role of dreamy
vampire Edward Cullen even if series creator Stephenie Meyer chose to write
more “Twilight” books in the future, he is clearly looking to do a hatchet job
on other roles and characters. By all means, let the unintentional hilarity
ensue………
- Don’t be greedy. Have patience. Never be afraid to take a
step back and exercise some caution. Those are words of wisdom to live by for
art forgers and they could definitely have helped 63-year-old William Mumford, a British man who has been sentenced to
two years in jail for forging up to 1,000 paintings. Scotland Yard said Mumford
imitated artists such as Maqbool Fida Husain, Kyffin Williams and John Tunnard.
How was this artistic scammer found out? Mumford got greedy and because of his
lack of self-control, a major auction house saw in 2009 that an unusually large
number of Husain paintings were offered for sale. Suspecting something sinister
might be afoot, the auction house contacted police and from there,
investigators went to work unraveling a scheme in which co-conspirators placed
the bogus works for sale on eBay and at British auction houses in exchange for
a 20 percent cut. Mumford, not a hardened criminal in any sense, caved when
investigators questioned him and admitted creating up to 1,000 forgeries.
Detectives learned that some of his bogus works had been sold for up to $38,500.
He was sentenced Thursday at a London court after earlier pleading guilty to
conspiracy to defraud and will now have to do his scamming in a place where his
fellow inmates/new neighbors are probably more conscious of a con………..
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