- Friday may or may not be the end of the world. There is
no such uncertainty about the kooks who are threatening to overrun the sleepy village of Bugarach, France. Bugarach has the misfortune of being home to
a mountain that Doomsday believers say will be the only place
to avoid the end of the world. This mystical mountain could draw thousands of
apocalyptic kooks to the town of 189 and Mayor Jean-Pierre
Delord wants to prevent his town from being deluged by morons. To head off a
crisis, Delord has called in police to block off the mountain and turn away
those who believe the massive pile of rock ontains a garage for UFOs and is the only place safe from the end of the
world on Friday. The mountain will be blocked off until
two days after the world is supposed to end, much to the chagrin of thousands of devotees who have flocked to
Bugarach based on the belief that aliens will rescue them when the apocalypse
comes. “I am making an appeal to the world - do not come to Bugarach. This is
no laughing matter. If 10,000 people turn up on December 21, our village will
not be able to cope,” Delord said. Showing a macabre sense of humor borne out
of dealing with New Age idiots whose fanatical world views are making his life
a living hell, Delord related the story of a hippie who died climbing the
mountain earlier this year and quipped, “The end of the world came a bit
earlier for him than he expected.” Hey oh, Mr. Mayor. Police and military units
have established roadblocks to prevent mountain-crashers from attempting to
scale the summit and the entire area is off limits until Dec. 24. “I have
issued an order barring anyone from climbing the mountain. And those trying to get into the village
will be stopped and asked what their business is,” added regional prefect Eric
Freysselinard said. “Bugarach and the mountain will then remain closed off
until two days after the world is supposed to end.” Watching law enforcement
attempt to turn away maniacal fools who are convinced the area has been selected
by aliens as the only place to survive the apocalypse to take place at the end
of Mayan calendar's 5,125-year cycle should be entertaining. This will be the
183rd time the world had been predicted to end in the last 2,000 years, but
this is easily the most comically absurd such occasion………
- Say goodbye to NBA
TV, basketball fans. Sure, the official cable channel of the mighty National
Basketball Association seems like a sturdy enterprise capable of withstanding
just about any adversity, but the network is about to face a storm the likes of
which it has never seen before: Hurricane Zeke. That’s right, Basketball Hall
of Famer Isiah Thomas will join NBA TV as a studio analyst. Thomas is fresh off
wrecking the men’s basketball program at Florida International, where he
“coached” for three seasons before being fired in April with a record of 26-65.
Not being able to turn around a low mid-major in an also-ran conference was
merely the latest in a series of epic basketball failures for Thomas, who has
achieved virtually no success in the sport since retiring as a player in 1994.
In uniform, he was a 12-time All-Star point guard who led the Detroit Pistons
to two NBA titles. Since retiring, he bought and essentially ruined the
Continental Basketball Association before moving on to front office positions
with the Indiana Pacers and New York Knicks, the latter of which he plunged
into a state of basketball apocalypse with a series of horrendous signings that
included the acquisitions of Stephon Marbury and Eddy Curry and the signing of
approximately 14 identical small forwards at the same time to identically
absurd contracts and the always-memorable sexual harassment suit from a fired
female employee that the team eventually settled for $12 million. Armed with
all of that basketball expertise, Thomas will shower his wisdom on viewers and
visitors to NBA.com, where he will be a regular contributor. Enjoy NBA TV while
you still can………
- Sun Roofs of Death has a nice ring to it, right? Hyundai has just
such a product in its repertoire and best of all, customers have paid $2,000
extra on their new vehicle to have a deluxe package including the SROD. Rather
than embrace ownership of a unique product that may shatter while the car is
moving, the company is recalling about 13,500 of its 2012 Veloster models with
potential SRODs. The "panoramic" sunroof may have been weakened
during assembly of the cars, according to a company filing with the U.S. National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration. That weakened panel could cause the
glass panel to break while the car is in operation and models produced from
Nov. 1, 2011 through April 17, 2012 are affected by the recall. The Veloster is
a three-door compact car and all of the affected vehicles were manufactured in
Hyundai's home country of South Korea. So far, the NHTSA said it has received
11 consumer complaints from drivers claiming that sunroofs have shattered or
exploded in their 2012 Veloster models. Of those 11, seven reported that they
were driving when the glass shattered, some of them while the Veloster was
traveling at highway speeds. The good news is that no injuries or crashes were
reported to NHTSA, so clearly people are enjoying their SROD experiences. Hyundai
will begin notifying customers in the coming weeks and those with affected
vehicles will be advised to bring their cars into dealerships for inspection
and, if necessary, free replacement of the sunroofs. While they are at the dealership,
perhaps they can have their faulty parking break replaced if they also happen
to own one of the 4,500 Velosters Hyundai is recalling because moisture and
road grime may cause the parking brake components to bind, creating the chance
that the parking brake will fail. Those defective vehicles were manufactured from
July 2, 2011 to Feb. 27, 2012 and when one considers that Hyundai sold 32,886
Velosters in the first 11 months of this year, that is an awfully high
percentage of faulty cars in one particular model………..
- Attention, all feminists around the world: You already
have a reputation as an angry lot, maybe unjustifiably so in some sense, but
the women of Gaggle are not helping your cause. This 22-piece femi-Nazi alternative
choir is walking around with a massive chip on its collective soldier and
perhaps because their debut album, “From the Mouth of the Cave” is not selling
as well as they had hoped. The project dropped in June and hasn’t exactly
become a smash hit, which could explain why Gaggle are taking an angry and
demanding approach with the latest single released from the album.
Appropriately titled “The Power of Money,” this jaw-droppingly overpriced song
will be sold for £3,000 per download, to reflect the cost of making it,
according to the group. “"What does money mean to you? How do you put a
value on the things you care about? Is money the same thing as worth? This song
is precious. And yet, we're told that, nowadays, 'a single' is almost
valueless. And that pisses us off. So we have done a budget of how much this
single cost," the group ranted in a statement. “The many hours it took to
write, arrange, compose, master; the expertise of all the musicians,
technicians, designers, producers involved; all money, time, energy, love and
blagging that was ploughed into making all that happen. And come up with a
VALUE. We are putting this tune to market for the sum of £3,000." Hmm….this
reeks of a no-name group staging an absurd publicity stunt, realizing they won't
sell one damn copy of the song at about $4,500 a pop. Maybe it really is a
scathing criticism of the music industry wrapped in a shameless PR stunt, but
it’s doubtful that Gaggle will be headlining Coachella next summer because of
it……….
- Tragedy happens and along with the outrage and outcry to
take steps to prevent a similar event from ever occurring again, there will
always be those who are either seeking to cash in or were already in position
to do so. After the tragic shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., Utah-based apparel
maker Amendment II is one such enterprise and although the company has been in
business for a couple of years now, business has picked up substantially in the
past few days. Up ‘til now, Amendment II has primarily sold its brand of
lightweight armor called “Ryno-Hide” to police agencies and the military.
However, a decision last year to diversify by inserting sheets of the armor in
children’s backpacks is now paying off handsomely for the company. “The concept
came up as things happened at schools,” said Rich Brand, the company’s chief
operating officer. “Children need protection as well.” Because the backpacks retail
from $150-300, Amendment II focused primarily on doomsday kooks who are
stocking their apocalypse bunkers and waiting for the day Armageddon reigns
terror on the globe. “Our armor was being bought to protect people, the
‘preppers,’ is the term,” Brand said. However, the recent rash of public
shootings in Connecticut, Colorado and Oregon has spurred a shift in clientele
and now, non-preppers and parents are looking at child-sized body armor and
Kevlar backpacks as viable options. “At this point, it’s transcended to everyone.
Anyone who’s sending out a child into the world, seeing what can happen now,
they want to protect their children,” Brand added. For the past year, Amendment
II sold a limited number of the heavy-duty backpacks, typically at gun shows.
Since Friday, demand for the product has soared to the point that the company’s
website was overloaded and overwhelmed. For those who didn’t get their order in
early, the wait could be long or you could always consult the doomsday prepper
in your life to see if he or she has some extra Kevlar to spare……..
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