Saturday, June 09, 2012

Vegetables v. smoking, Twitter v. athletes and bullets v. zombies

- Twitter remains a loaded gun in the hands of professional athletes who have neither the license nor the intelligence to handle it. Adding in more technology to the mix doesn’t help either, as evidenced by the curious case of Denver Broncos linebacker D.J. Williams. Like many teams, the Broncos are turning to tablet computers in lieu of traditional playbooks. The team gave players iPads this offseason as an alternative to more customary playbooks and Williams happily notified his Twitter followers of the development – by apparently revealing defensive formations when he tweeted out a picture of his digital playbook Friday. The image revealed what appeared to be six formations of one defensive play that had the label "Sink Sam 1 Tite (Formation Adjustment).” A team official quickly contacted Williams and the image was deleted, but as any athletes who has sent out an ill-advised tweet knows, once you put a message or image out there, there is no way to completely erase it from the Internet. "Coach just told me I have to learn a new position over the weekn,, we have IPads as playbooks now, but I'm old skool I'm using flash cards," Williams originally tweeted when he posted the picture. He later attempted to diffuse the drama by tweeting a second message "Dear Fans: My post about learning a new position and the fact that our playbooks are now iPad was all for you." Whatever you say, D………..


- Who isn’t concerned about a possible zombie attack? Knowing that the undead may be coming your way with ill intentions has a way of reshaping one’s priorities and in the quest to stay safe from a zombie attack, what better weapon to have than zombie bullets? Hornady Manufacturing is ahead of the curve on this one and is manufacturing zombie bullets as quickly as possible and shipping them to sporting goods and gun stores across the United States. “Be PREPARED – supply yourself for the Zombie Apocalypse with Zombie Max ammunition from Hornady! Loaded with PROVEN Z-Max bullets… MAKE DEAD PERMANENT!” reads a message on the company’s website. How serious is the threat? Serious enough that company spokesman Everett Deger feels the need to pretend that even though the bullets are real, they’re only meant to be used on targets and not on people or zombies. Mmm hmm, sure thing. No use for them on actual zombies, wink, wink. Hornady Manufacturing president Steve Hornady came up with the idea for Zombie Max bullets because of his love for zombie movies and shows. “After it gained some acceptance among some of us here in the company got on board with the idea we decided just to have some fun with a marketing plan that would allow us to create some ammunition designed for that … fictional world,” Deger said. Not surprisingly, Deger said Zombie Max bullets are Hornady’s most successful products. “This is probably one of the only (product) launches that we’ve seen when people who are not in the hunting and shooting industry will go out and they will purchase this,” Deger explained. Well, duh. A person need not be in the hunting or shooting industry to need to be safe from a zombie onslaught…………


- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Myanmar is essentially one big, continuous riot nowadays and the fun continued Saturday as security forces in western Myanmar opened fire on rioters who burned hundreds of homes in sectarian violence that killed at least seven people. While relative calm has been restored for the time being, the rioting signaled the furor still alive and well in long-standing tensions between Buddhist residents and Muslims. The Buddhists consider the Muslims illegal settlers from neighboring Bangladesh. Although it is largely a regional issue, the government fears the unrest could spread elsewhere because the split also runs along religious lines. Friday’s violence in Maungdaw and Buthidaung townships in Rakhine state featured rampaging mobs, troops brought in to reinforce police and a lot of gunfire and actual fire. Security officials imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew and banned gatherings of more than five people. State media reports placed the number of people killed in the rioting at seven, with 17 wounded. An impressive 494 houses, 19 shops and a guest house were burned down. Initial blame was placed on 1,000 supposed terrorists, some of whom also stormed Maungdaw General Hospital. Local residents identified the angry mob’s members as Muslims, which makes sense because the area is 90 percent Muslim. To add security to the region, Myanmar naval forces are taking security measures along the nearby coast on the Bay of Bengal. The spark that ignited this weekend’s riots was the rape and murder of a young Buddhist girl last month, allegedly by three Muslim youths. Propaganda was circulated, tensions were inflamed and on June 3, 10 Muslims were killed by an angry mob that attacked a bus carrying them from a religious gathering in Rakhine's Taunggup town. From there, draw a straight line to Friday’s explosive riots………..


- Music, even rock and roll, is above all else a business. Even for heavy metal bands, who should be the hardest rocking of all, business is never far away. Deep Purple singer Ian Gillan and former Ozzy Osborne guitarist Bernie Tormé needed something to do with their careers as viable rockers all but over and so they have teamed up to launch a series of heavy metal business seminars. 

Tormé first rocked with Osborne's band in 1982 but is now on his own and ready to wade into the corporate world. "I have worked with a fair mix of Class A rock stars. The music business is a great teacher of life skills such as negotiating, marketing, teamwork, high performance and so on, both how to do them well and occasionally the dark side of the force,” he explained. Wait….a “Star Wars” reference? Is this guy a rock icon, a businessman or a sci-fi dork? To find out, just attend he and Gillan’s seminar at the Hilton Hotel in Dartford on June 19. The sessions are organized by Peter Cook, a former business manager and author of books such “Punk Rock People Management” and “Sex, Leadership and Rock'n'Roll.” Cook believes the coroprate world has much to learn from the world of pyrotechnics, guitar solos, big hair, spandex, groupies and copious amounts of drugs and alcohol. “Procurement managers are not known for throwing televisions out of windows or for their creativity…What we're teaching them is about balancing the need for order and structure with a little bit of creative spark which gives them the edge over their competitors,” Cook said. Lest anyone think these sessions will be an excuse for un-cool businessmen to hang with rock stars, just know that the focus will be the importance of discipline. There may or may not be an after-hours sessions in the hotel’s penthouse suite on how to properly snort a line of blow off a hooker’s stomach………..


- Two birds, one health-wrecking stone. Smokers, your next method for kicking your cancer stick habit has arrived and it fits nicely on your dinner plate. Thanks to researcher Jeffrey P. Haibach, a graduate research assistant at the University at Buffalo's department of community health and health behavior, the world not knows that fruits and vegetables may help smokers quit the habit. Haibach and his research team examined the cases of 1,000 adult smokers aged 25 and older and surveyed them on their smoking and eating habits. Fourteen months later, the smokers took a phone survey to find out how much they had smoked in the past month. While previous research suggested that people who quit smoking for less than six months ate more fruits and vegetables than people who still smoked, Haibach wanted to know smokers who ate more fruits and vegetables were more likely to kick the habit. The news was good for that thesis, as the 14-month follow-up calls showed that smokers who ate the most fruits and vegetables were three times more likely to be tobacco-free for a full 30 days than smokers who ate the least. "We may have identified a new tool that can help people quit smoking,” Haibach said in a news release. "Granted, this is just an observational study, but improving one's diet may facilitate quitting.” Because the findings persisted even after factoring in the smoker's age, gender, education, household income and race, that suggestion seems fairly likely. Not only that, but smokers who ate the most fruits and vegetables smoked fewer cigarettes per day, waited longer to smoke their first cigarette of the day and scored lower on a nicotine dependence test administered by the researchers. The obvious question is why broccoli or apple slices would be helpful in kicking the cancer stick habit. While the study was not aimed at answering this question specifically, the researchers postulated that it might be cause the high fiber taken in from fruits and vegetables make people feel fuller. "It is also possible that fruits and vegetables give people more of a feeling of satiety or fullness so that they feel less of a need to smoke, since smokers sometimes confuse hunger with an urge to smoke," Haibach offered. Oh, and for those who stay skeleton-like thin due in large part to their filthy smoking habit, eating more fruits and vegetables would help maintain that svelte physique without the added bonus of life-ending lung ailments……….

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