- In a not-awaited development that no one was looking
forward to, the New Men on the Block are making another comeback. The longtime
man band is proving that its members simply have no other place to go in the
world by reuniting for another run even though its members are now old enough
to plausibly be grandparents. Nothing is sadder in the music world than an act
that doesn’t know when to retire (see Stones, Rolling) and a man band whose
members are now in their 40s is perhaps the saddest entity of all. Yet there
are Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg, Jordan Knight, Danny
Wood and Jonathan Knight reuniting for a summer tour with fellow old-as-hell
man-banders 98 Sync Town Degrees and quasi-man-banders and ‘90s has-beens Boyz II Men for a
tour that will start May 31 in Uncasville, Conn. Of course, NMOTB have already
attempted numerous reunions and their most ridiculous one was trying to
re-package themselves by changing their name from New Men on the Block to
simply the acronym of those words, believing that might throw people off the
scent of who they truly were. Getting back together at this point is simply
depressing, perhaps even more depressing than the aging, nostalgic women
breaking out their best ‘90s outfit and dipping into their savings account to
buy a ticket when this tour winds through their town. "It just seems like
we are getting better and better," said NMOTB member Joey McIntyre, 40.
"We're excited to get out there, rock out and have fun." In building
interest for the tour, the group will release its first album in four years,
titled “10,” on April 2. 2. "We have been doing this for almost 25
years," McIntyre added. "So it's important that the music and the
lyrics speak to who we are as grown men." But that’s the problem,
J. No one ever liked you as grown men. The girls who shrieked over you and your
terrible music liked you because you were young, trendy for 15 minutes and they
thought you were cute. No one wants to see a bunch of aged-out dudes singing
crappy pop songs and dancing in unison with their frosted tips and matching
outfits……….
- Rage against traffic cops is nothing new. However, staging
an
eight-hour assault on the headquarters of the local traffic police is a slight
escalation of that concept. A group of suicide bombers and gunmen launched just
such an attack on the headquarters of the Kabul traffic police on Monday, the
second coordinated attack on a government building in less than a week. Five of
the attackers and three traffic police officers were killed, Afghan interior
ministry officials said. Having a second such attack within a week suggests
that insurgents may be altering their tactics and seeking to test Afghan
security forces in Kabul after a series of high-profile attacks on Western
targets last year. Violence in the war-torn nation has gone from prevalent to
inescapable in the past 12 months and observers have wondered whether the
350,000-strong Afghan security forces will be able to manage once foreign
troops withdraw by the end of 2014. The first attack was carried out by six
suicide bombers who attacked the National Directorate of Security (NDS),
killing two guards. "It's very clear that more and more the Afghan
security sources are getting into the lead, the more they are targeted by the
insurgents," said Brigadier General Gunter Katz, spokesman for the
NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Monday’s attack
started with three attackers detonating suicide bombs outside the main entrance
and continued when the two remaining attackers sought to capitalize on the
resulting chaos by storming the unfortified area, Deputy Interior Minister
General Abdul Rahman said. Sporting automatic rifles, the second wave of
attackers battled security forces outside the building nestled between two
police hubs and close to parliament and a road commonly used by Afghan MPs.
Thick smoke billowed skyward from the compound and an Afghan Army helicopter
hovered above the scene as security forces returned fire with rockets and
machine guns. The two remaining attackers were eventually killed by security
forces, but the apparent victory left Afghan officials certain that the months
ahead will be even more violent and bloody than previously expected………
- NFL draft hopefuls have a chance to sell themselves to
prospective teams at February’s NFL scouting combine, but some of the more
troubled entrants in the draft need more time to talk themselves up than a
weekend at the combine affords them. Former LSU star Tyrann "Honey
Badger" Mathieu is a troubled soul who needs all of the positive traction
he can get with NFL teams after a troubled career that came to a premature end
when he was kicked off the team by coach Les Miles after reportedly failing a
third drug test. He considered transferring to a smaller school to continue his
career, went into a drug treatment center in Houston and fell on his face again
when he was arrested in late October along with three other former LSU players
-- including quarterback Jordan Jefferson -- after police said they found marijuana
at Mathieu's apartment. After the college football season ended, Mathieu
decided to end his efforts to play again in college and focused all of his
efforts on reaching the pro level. To convince a team to pick him anywhere in
the seven rounds of April’s draft, Mathieu must repair his image and convince
NFL teams that he has changed his ways. It’s not the sort of effort a player
less than two years removed from being a Heisman Trophy finalist typically must
undertake, but as Mathieu meets with interested NFL teams during his trip, it’s
his most important mission. He knows he will be met with a healthy amount of
skepticism from any team official he meets with. "They have every right to
do that," Mathieu said. "I'm not really looking forward to people trusting
me today or tomorrow. Trust takes time, especially when you've done a lot of
things for people not to be able to trust you. It may take two years. It may
take five years for people to start trusting Tyrann again.” One quick piece of
advice for Mathieu: Not referring to yourself in the third person will be very
helpful in convincing teams you’ve gotten your act together. Andy Harris
believes this strongly. To prepare for the combine, Mathieu has been training in
Florida and also flew to Arizona to work out with Patrick Peterson, a former
LSU cornerback now with the Arizona Cardinals. He realizes that if he screws up
his next chance for any reason at all, it could spell the end of his non-CFL
football career. "This is my last shot," he said. "You've got to
learn when to do things and when not to do things, when to party and when not
to party. Every day is football. That's the biggest thing I got out of it. I'm
just ready to live a football life." The words sound good, but
words have never really been Mathieu’s biggest problem………
- If the world cannot agree on where to drill and mine for
valuable resources on Earth, maybe it’s time to shift the focus to outer space.
In fact, a new venture is already underway to
extract mineral resources on asteroids. Furthermore, a second company has
joined the race and the announcement of plans by Deep Space
Industries to exploit the rare metals present in the space rocks makes the
fight over asteroid mining a two-horse race. Planetary Resources went public
with its proposals last year, but the company now has competition in a field
some experts predict could grow into a trillion-dollar business. Scientists
have expressed skepticism over the idea, but Deep Space Industries is
undeterred and wants to send a fleet of asteroid-prospecting spacecraft out
into the Solar System to hunt for resources. DSI wants to send out its
spacecrafts, which it calls
"Fireflies,” to hunt for minerals. The crafts would use low-cost
CubeSat components and benefit from discounted delivery to space by
ride-sharing on the launch of larger communications satellites. With a mass of
just 55 pounds, the lightweight crafts could be launched as soon as 2015 on
journeys of two to six months. From there, DSI wants to launch bigger
spacecraft - which it calls "Dragonflies" - for round-trip visits
that bring back samples. The longer missions would take two to four years,
depending on the target, and hopefully return 60 to 150 pounds of material from
target asteroids. "Using resources harvested in space is the only way to
afford permanent space development," said the company's chief executive
David Gump. "More than 900 new asteroids that pass near Earth are
discovered every year. They can be like the Iron Range of Minnesota was for the
Detroit car industry last century - a key resource located near where it was
needed. In this case, metals and fuel from asteroids can expand the in-space
industries of this century." Both companies hope a steroids could yield
precious minerals such as gold, platinum and rare-Earth metals………
- Get buzzed and help out a good cause. For beer-loving New
Yorkers, that sounds like a winning offer and next week, it’s an offer they
will be able to take full advantage of with a trip to Long Island. Trekking out
to the L.I. is normally not on the to-do list for Manhattanites, but the chance
to help out victims of Hurricane Sandy should be a solid draw. Starting
Tuesday, a
collaboration between eight Long Island craft breweries will serve as party
liquid courage and part humanitarian aid. A limited-edition beer, an India pale
ale named Surge Protector, will flow from the taps at Long Island bars and all
proceeds from sales of the brew will be donated to Long Island Cares and
Barrier Brewing Co. -- an Oceanside microbrewery that was destroyed by Sandy. The
Tap Room in Patchogue and the Black Sheep Ale House in Mineola will serve the
beer starting at an 8 p.m. launch party next Tuesday. The day after the launch,
22-ounce bottles of Surge Protector will go on sale at retail beverage centers
for about $16.99 a bottle and be available on tap at about 40 bars across Long
Island. Surge Protector is a collaborative effort by Barrier Brewing, Blind Bat
Brewery, Blue Point Brewing Co., Great South Bay Brewery, Greenport Harbor
Brewing, Long Ireland Beer Co., Port Jeff Brewing Co. and Spider Bite Brewing
Co. and was brewed at Blue Point in Patchogue last month. Each of the participating
breweries contributed a bag of malt barley to make up the base of the brew and
the result was an India pale ale with "a big burst of hop flavor right off
that dissipates really quickly and doesn't leave a bitter aftertaste,"
said Curt Potter, a spokesman for Blue Point. The final product was a 60-barrel
batch, which yields about 100 kegs, and with only 2,000 bottles for sale, the
brew is expected to sell out fast. According to Barry McLaughlin, a craft-beer
specialist at Clare Rose, the idea for the brew emerged from a collaborative
beer project the breweries had been planning for Long Island Craft Beer Week in
May.………
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