- Everyone, from music critics to fans to peers, has a
definite opinion on Oasis. The Manchester rockers have been characterized as
derivative, arrogant, self-important, rock geniuses, great lyricists and most
everything in between. However, Franz Ferdinand frontman Alex Kapranos
definitely put a different spin on Oasis’ legacy during a recent Twitter exchange
with a fan. Kapranos, whose own band are currently working on material for their fourth
studio album and haven't played a billed gig for over two years, was asked
during a Twitter question and answer session about what advice he would give to
new bands. His first response was to avoid Oasis covers, to which came the
obvious query, “Why not cover Oasis?” He glibly replied, “Ach. Nothing
personal. Just because everyone does. And they’re so f*cking boring.” Other
non-memorable exchanges covered his opinions on soccer hooligans, his favorite
model of guitar and where he likes to go for fish and chips. At one point, he
admitted to simply trying to get under chatters’ skin with some of his remarks.
"Yes, I know. I'm just being confrontational for the sake of it and why
the f*ck not?" he asked. Whenever Franz Ferdinand gets around to their
next album, it will be the follow up to 2009's “Tonight: Franz Ferdinand.” In
the meantime, the Scottish rockers are set debut some of the new material at an
intimate set of shows in Ireland this month beginning on May 18 at Galway's
Roisin Dubh. They will make a few stops on the festival circuit this summer as
well, with dates at Primavera Sound, Berlin Festival, Osheaga festival, Open'er
festival and London's Field Day. Odds are they will not be playing any covers
of “Champagne Supernova” at any of those shows……….
- Hot sauce: It’s not just to spice up your scrambled eggs
any longer. Thanks to Dr. Ali Tavakkoli of Brigham and Women's Hospital in
Boston, hot sauce is expanding its resume and adding weight-loss booster to
that list. Tavakkoli has been studying an ingredient called capsaicin that
gives chili peppers their intense heat and discovered that it has the ability
to destroy nerve fibers that send signals from the gut to the brain while
leaving intact the nerve fibers that send signals the other way, from the brain
to the gut. The notion sounds convoluted, but the end result was weight loss.
"By selectively disrupting these signals that pass from the intestine to
the brain, we have been able to change the way food is absorbed in the
intestine," Tavakkoli explained. In his experiments, he used a surgery to
apply tiny cloths soaked with a capsaicin solution directly to the nerve around
the stomachs of lab rats. That leaves the obvious question of whether the
principle holds true with humans and if it does, the concept could be a
surgical alternative to bariatric surgery, which is currently performed on less
than 1 percent of the obese patients who qualify for the procedure. Tavakkoli
identified the super obese (i.e. most Americans) as the perfect candidates for
this type of intervention, largely because it would be an extremely invasive
procedure and thus best for someone with hundreds of pounds to lose (again, a
lot of Americans). The capsaicin application would be less invasive than
bariatric surgery, which would be an obvious benefit. It also appears to target
the so-called "bad fat" that's located in the abdomen, around the
organs and liver. Such fat is associated with heart disease and type 2
diabetes. Über-FAT people looking for a can of chili peppers to down and
speed their weight loss be cautioned: Simply eating red hot chili peppers (not
Anthony Kiedis) likely will not have the same effect, at least not to the same
extent. Chili peppers do amp up a person’s metabolism for about 3 hours after
eating them and this increase in metabolism can help burn some calories, at
least for a few hours. However, the more tolerance a person builds up to the
peppers’ heat, the less impact they will have on metabolism……….
- Ass dialing. That’s the next big issue in New York City? Manhattan-ites
are supposed to be cooler and trendier than everyone else, but apparently
neither of those qualities make them any less clumsy or careless than those
dwelling outside the media capital of the world. A new study has discovered
than an alarming number of ass dialers live in New York City and these fools
are jamming
up 911 lines in a city that has prided itself on its ability to respond in a
crisis. A stunning 4 million such calls were made to the city's emergency call
centers in 2010, according to a recent Winbourne Consulting report,
commissioned by the city. The original purpose of the report was to analyze the
system after a massive blizzard delayed first responders and left Mayor Michael
Bloomberg open to criticism. When the stat crunchers at Winbourne Consulting sifted
through the data, they learned that more than one-third of some 11 million
emergency calls made in New York each year come from an idiot who doesn’t have
any idea what their backside is doing to their phone. Even though accidental
emergency ass dials are 19 seconds or less on average, they still add an
increased burden on emergency response systems. "The increased
proliferation of cellular telephones has caused a dramatic increase in the
number of accidental 911 calls made," the report said. What did analysts
recommend to fix the problem? The ever-effective citywide information campaign
to alert the public of the issue and to streamline systems between the police
and fire departments. In a city drowning in nonstop information, the odds of
that messages getting through don’t seem high………..
- Is that a problem? When a brand new plane carrying 48 (or 45, depending on the source)
people, including potential buyers and journalists, disappears in Indonesia
while flying over mountains, it would seem to be a reason for concern. The
Sukhoi Superjet-100 took off from Jakarta's Halim Perdanakusuma Airport at 2:21
p.m. and dropped off the radar
21 minutes later near the Salak mountain range. The crew asked air traffic
control for permission to descend from 10,000 feet to 6,000 feet but did not
give any explanation. A search ensued for the plane, but was called off due to
darkness Wednesday night. When it resumed Thursday, teams searching for
the plane spotted debris from the Sukhoi Superjet 100 at a height of about 5,800
feet on the side of Mount Salak, a volcano south of Jakarta, said Vice Marshal
Daryatmo, head of the National Search and Rescue Agency. Emergency personnel
idetified the Sukhoi logo among the wreckage and by the time news of the find
began to spread, the Russian Investigative Committee said it had launched a
criminal probe into possible safety violations. No survivors have been found in
the wreckage of the craft, which was developed by the Russian aerospace company Sukhoi in co-operation with
Western partners. Its collapse is ominous for Russia as the plane was the first
completely new airliner designed in the country since the Soviet collapse. The
midrange jet made its maiden run in 2008 and was supposed to help Russia break
into international markets dominated by Boeing and Airbus. Instead, it crashed
on the fourth stop of a six-nation "Welcome Asia!" road show after
having already been to Myanmar, Pakistan and Kazakhstan. Authorities plan to
start removing bodies from the area by helicopter Friday and Indonesian
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said in a brief televised address that the
Russian plane appeared to have crashed into Mount Salak. The volcano and its
surrounding mountains can be seen in an image released by the Indonesian
military with d bits of debris strewn across a patch of steep mountainside
stripped bare of the thick vegetation covering the surrounding area. No reason
for the crash has been given, but Indonesia's Sky Aviation is probably
rethinking the $380 million deal it signed in 2011 to buy 12 Sukhoi Superjet
100s. Oh, and Sukhoi specializes in military aircraft and is known especially
for its fighter jets, so plenty of military servicemen and women around the
world have to be fired up about this news………….
- Every team in the NBA playoffs is looking for an edge –
any edge. A key injury to an opponent’s star player, crowd noise or the marital
problems of the opposing point guard could all give a team that advantage it
needs to win a closely contested best-of-7 series. However, it’s the alleged
use of a certain piece of technology on the bench during a timeout by the
Denver Nuggets that has the Los Angeles Lakers irate. The Lakers lead the
series 3-2 and had a chance to close it out in Game 5 in L.A. Monday night.
They failed and most media members pegged a large chunk of the blame on idiotic
remarks by Lakers center Andrew Bynum, who said after practice Sunday that
close-out games are “usually easy.” The Nuggets cited the comments as heavy
motivation and they won the game 102-99 to force a trip back to Denver for Game
6 Thursday night. While the Lakers can’t go back in time and erase Bynum’s
stupidity, they can complain about Denver using a laptop during a timeout. Lakers personnel were
reportedly livid after seeing the Nuggets use a laptop computer in their huddle
during a 20-second timeout with 19.9 seconds left to play. The offending lapper
apparently belonged to an assistant coach sitting behind the bench with it.
Having it behind the bench is fine, but using such devices in the huddle is
against NBA rules and could carry a hefty fine of up to $250,000. Nuggets
general manager Masai Ujiri reached out to the
league to try and head off the controversy and coach George Karl talked
during an interview about a memo from the league indicating that a laptop with
scouting information could be kept near the bench so long as information isn’t
taken from them while the game is in progress. With the insurgence of
technology in every other aspect of nearly every sport, maybe the incident
could spark discussion of why it’s illegal for teams to have scouting reports
and statistics at hand during a game……….
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